Post Patent Public Submissions

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is required by 35 U.S.C. 131 et seq. to examine an application for patent and, when appropriate, issue a patent. The provision of 35 U.S.C. 301 and 37 CFR 1.501 govern the ability if a person to submit into the file of an issued patent (1) prior art consisting of patents or printed publications which the person making the submission believes to have a bearing on the patentability of any claim of the patent, and (2) statements of the patent owner filed by the patent owner in a proceeding before a Federal court or the USPTO in which the patent owner took a position on the scope of any claim of the patent. The information in this collection can be submitted electronically through EFS-Web, the USPTO’s web-based electronic filing system, as well as on paper. The USPTO is therefore accounting for both electronic and paper submissions in this collection. This information collection is necessary so that the public may submit, in a patent file, prior art consisting of patents or printed publications which the person making the submission believes to have a bearing on the patentability of any claim of the patent, and statements of the patent owner that were filed by the patent owner in a proceeding before a Federal court or the USPTO in which the patent owner took a position on the scope of any claim of the patent. The public may use this information to aid in ascertaining the patentability and/or scope of the claims of the patent. The USPTO may use the information during subsequent reissue or reexamination proceedings, except that the USPTO’s use of statements of the patent owner that were filed by the patent owners in a proceeding before a Federal court or the USPTO in which the patent owner took a position on the scope of any claim of the patent will be limited to determining the meaning of a patent claim in ex parte reexamination proceedings that have already been ordered and in inter partes review and post review proceedings that have already been instituted.

The latest form for Post Patent Public Submissions expires 2021-11-30 and can be found here.

Electronic Information Disclosure Citation in a Patent

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