Pre-approval
contingent upon no substantive changes to this collection after
adoption of the final rule. Otherwise this collection should be
re-submitted to OMB for review.
Inventory as of this Action
Requested
Previously Approved
10/31/2015
36 Months From Approved
5,832,472
0
0
1,660
0
0
2,594,521,312
0
0
The USPTO is submitting this request
in support of the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking titled "Setting and
Adjusting Patent Fees" (RIN 0651-AC54). The USPTO proposes to set
or adjust patent fees as authorized by the Leahy-Smith America
Invents Act ("Act" or "AIA") Pub.L.112-29. The proposed fees will
provide the Office with a sufficient amount of aggregate revenue to
recover its aggregate cost of patent operations and will help the
Office implement a sustainable funding model, reduce the current
patent application backlog, decrease patent pendency, improve
patent quality, and upgrade the Office's patent business
information technology ("IT") capability and infrastructure. The
Office also proposes to reduce fees for a new class of patent
applicants, "micro entities," under section 10(g) of the Act and
proposes to include multipart and staged fees for requests for
continued examination ("RCEs") and appeals. These proposals will
foster innovation and increase application processing options. When
fees are set or adjusted, the aggregate revenue from the patent
fees may only be set to recover the aggregate estimated costs to
the Office for processing, activities, services, and materials
relating to patents, including administrative costs to the Office
with respect to such patent operations. Under section 10(b) of the
AIA, eligible small entities shall receive a 50 percent fee
reduction from the large entity fees for filing, searching,
examining, issuing, appealing, and maintaining patent applications
and patents. The Act further provides that the micro entities shall
receive a 75 percent fee reduction for filing, searching,
examining, issuing, appealing, and maintaining patent applications
and patents. This information collection request is submitted as a
fee-based burden collection to best provide for comment and review
of the fee adjustment burden impact of the proposed rulemaking. The
USPTO will maintain the information requirements and non-fee burden
for the information collection items within separate collections.
This new collection will be maintained for fee burden adjustments
only. The relevant fee burdens will be removed from their existing
collections through non-substantive change requests to discontinue
counting those burdens twice and overstating the total respondent
burden in the USPTO inventory. This information collection request
("ICR") includes: + "Correct inventorship after first office action
on the merits," an item introduced in this proposed rulemaking. The
information collection requirements for this item will eventually
be moved into 0651-0031 Patent Processing (Updating), and the fee
will remain in this collection. + "Petitions to the Chief
Administrative Patent Judge under 37 CFR 41.3," an item that is not
covered by an existing information collection request and is added
to this submission because the fee is affected by the proposed
rulemaking. The information requirements for this item will
eventually be moved into 0651-0063 Board of Patent Appeals and
Interferences (BPAI) Actions, and the fee will remain in this
collection. + Fee adjustments to existing and pending items in the
agency inventory. Information requirements for those items will
remain in their respective collections and only the corresponding
fees (as adjusted by the proposed rulemaking) are submitted for
this collection. + Response adjustments to existing and pending
items in the agency inventory projected to be impacted by the fee
adjustments because changes in some fees are expected to change
demand for those services, which changes the number of responses.
Information requirements for those items will remain in their
respective collections and only the corresponding fees are
submitted for this collection. The response adjustments are offered
here solely for the purpose of capturing the total impact on burden
due to the proposed rulemaking.
This information collection
request (ICR) includes program changes that are part of the impact
of the proposed rulemaking (new statute). In addition to the new
information requirement introduced by this proposed
rulemaking--Correct Inventorship After First Office Action on the
Merits--these changes include revised fee amounts and fee
structures that will have an impact on annual cost burden as well
as on the estimated responses for the associated information
requirements whose fees are affected by this ICR. This ICR also
includes program changes that are not part of the impact of the
proposed rulemaking. These changes are primarily from the movement
of the affected fees and their associated responses (as estimated
and approved in previous ICRs) into this new information
collection, as well as the addition of an existing information
requirement, Petition to the Chief Administrative Patent Judge
Under 37 CFR 41.3, that is not covered by a current information
collection. Please consult sections 1, 12, 13, and 15 of the
Supporting Statement for further explanation of these changes.
On behalf of this Federal agency, I certify that
the collection of information encompassed by this request complies
with 5 CFR 1320.9 and the related provisions of 5 CFR
1320.8(b)(3).
The following is a summary of the topics, regarding
the proposed collection of information, that the certification
covers:
(i) Why the information is being collected;
(ii) Use of information;
(iii) Burden estimate;
(iv) Nature of response (voluntary, required for a
benefit, or mandatory);
(v) Nature and extent of confidentiality; and
(vi) Need to display currently valid OMB control
number;
If you are unable to certify compliance with any of
these provisions, identify the item by leaving the box unchecked
and explain the reason in the Supporting Statement.