Service
Patent Issuance Process Handling & Filing (Small/Micro Entity)
This service is for our Filing of all necessary Patent Issuance paperwork, fees, and Handling the Process. The fee is for those that qualify as Small or Micro Entities, and does not include any USPTO fees.
Our base "normal" fee for handling your issuance payment, doing ‘final checks’, and associated procedures/paperwork. However, if you are willing to effectively rate our patent legal services online, we are happy to reduce our fee by 50% in appreciation of your time and effort in doing so. Please select that option, and advise us so we can send you more info on taking care of that option.
You
must act quickly to have the issuance fee and paperwork
filed according to the proper procedures by the due date printed on the
Allowance notice or your patent application will be irrevocably abandoned.
You are strongly advised not to handle this matter yourself as you are likely to make errors which could result in your losing patent rights, or your patent becoming abandoned and may cost thousands of dollars to revive.
As
part of our issuance service we perform multiple checks for common critical
issues before doing the paperwork/fee filing.
Thus, to avoid abandonment of your patent application, the issuance papers and payment must be properly filed with the USPTO by the due date indicated on the first page of the notice.
If you wish us to handle your issuance payment, doing ‘final checks’, and associated paperwork we would like to receive your payment to begin work no later than 4 weeks before the deadline. Otherwise, rush fees may apply depending on the required turn-around time and our cases load.
Important Legal Notices
NOTICE: Please be advised that
if a claims restriction was ever issued in your application (i.e., you had to elect prosecution to proceed on one of multiple alleged independent inventions in your application) or if there are any novel improvements you want to add to the patent, then you must file a divisional (or CIP for improvements) application on the non-elected claims while this case (on the elected claims) is still pending at the USPTO (e.g., before allowance of the claims or paying the issue fee). If you are unsure if a restriction was made on your case please do not hesitate to ask.
NOTICE: Micro Entity Status Patent Invalidation Risk: By default, we, and the USPTO, assume you continue to qualify for micro-entity status when you have previously claimed it, and continue to pay/remit fees at the micro-entity level. You must never pay, or remit to us, any USPTO fee at a micro entity level unless you have verified that all inventors/owners qualify, otherwise, that is a legal basis for anyone to invalidate your patent. Hence, if
all inventors/owners still qualify, to get lower USPTO fees, please have all inventors in the patent separately sign and upload to us the
USPTO's Micro Entity validation form to prove all inventors/owners still qualify as micro entities; otherwise, you must make sure that their higher small-entity fee schedule is paid, irrespective of what “Fee Due” they may indicate on the NOA letter.
NOTICE: You MUST file a CA or CIP (if you want it) while this present application is still pending at the USPTO, which CIP we strongly advise you to file not later than paying of the issuance fee, which timing you are responsible for assuring. If, for any reason, you do not file a timely CIP or continuation application, then please take notice (and mark your calendar) that you will have a (drop dead) final deadline to broaden your issued patent's claims (but no new matter) by 2 years after the issuance date by way of a Reissue patent application. Note that, due to complex legal issues, there is no 100% guarantee that the USPTO will allow you to broaden claims via Reissue. Note also that no new matter may be added to the patent specification/description in a Reissue. So doing a continuation/CIP now is the safest, lowest cost approach. After that 2yr, last chance deadline, you will ONLY be allowed to narrow claims. To be clear: this 2 years broadening time is just to change the claims, and you will not be allowed to add any new matter to the patent description. Only a filing of a CIP before issuance/fee payment will enable you to do that going forward.
NOTICE-
REASONS FOR ALLOWANCE:
You should review the "reasons for allowance" section (if any) of the
NOA and agree with everything that is state there. By paying the issue
fee you are agreeing to every reason for allowance stated there and later on in
litigation any unfavorable/narrowing reason(s) (even if actually inaccurate or
misleading) can be used against you. Let us know if we should make an
official statement against any of the reasons stated. This would just be
entered into the record and does not change the patent's allowance status. Our below fee includes reviewing, addressing
and positioning your concerns/input in this regard.
NOTICE-
ERRORS:
Based on the most recent case law it has been held that any substantial and/or
pertinent (even if otherwise minor) error or omission in the published
patent can invalidate the patent even if it was the USPTO's
fault. So, you should right away carefully review the issued patent for
any errors and/or omissions. In any case, if a problem is found, which
requires official correction, a certificate of correction (if an obvious error)
or reissue (if patentability or patent scope related errors are involved) would
be required.
NOTICE-
INVENTOR/ASSIGNEE INFO MISTAKES: You should right away
carefully review the USPTO filing receipt, and NOA for any official naming and
contact information mistakes they may have. If a name spelling or address
problem is found for any of the inventors/assignees, you should have us prepare
and file a corrected ADS form, which makes the required official correction;
otherwise, a much more costly certificate of correction would be required. Our fee is $200 to handle the
process for you before issuance, and the USPTO does not charge a fee for
this.
NOTICE-
INVENTORSHIP: Patent laws require that all people that
contributed to the conception of the invention as claimed in the allowed
claims must be listed as inventors in the patent. Any missing or incorrect actual inventor(s) may
invalidate the patent even if it was the USPTO's (or anyone
else’s) fault, or if the patent is assigned to another entity. So, you
should right away carefully review the allowed claims and determine if the
currently listed inventors are complete and correct. In any case, if you
find that inventorship is incorrect then you must promptly do an official
correction of inventorship. At this late
point it is more complicated process, yet if done after issuance it is far more
costly at least because a certificate of correction would be required and
inequitable conduct concerns may cloud the patent. We charge a fee to handle the process for you
before issuance, and the USPTO’s fee was $200 for micro entities. So, as us for a our current fee if you need
this to be properly done along with our issuance process work. Concerning INVENTORSHIP, the following guidance may help you better detect, understand, and sort out any such issues:
WHEN HAS CONCEPTION BY AN INVENTOR OCCURED?
Generally,
conception exists when a definite and permanent idea of an
operative (i.e., functionally capable of working in principle)
invention, including every feature of the subject matter sought to be patented,
is known. Coleman v. Dines, 754 F.2d 353, 359, 224 USPQ 857, 862 (Fed. Cir.
1985). Conception is complete when one of ordinary skill in the art could
construct the apparatus without unduly extensive research or experimentation.
See Summers v. Vogel, 332 F.2d 810, 816, 141 USPQ 816, 820 (CCPA 1064); In re
Tansel, 253 F.2d 241, 243, 117 USPQ 188, 189 (CCPA 1958).
A patent application contains a
detailed description (text and drawings) of the preferred design of the product
which is the subject of the invention. In a corporate engineering environment, there
will be dozens and perhaps hundreds of individuals who will have some input
into the design which is described in the patent application.
Following the detailed
description in the application are a number of claims, which define the
invention which is to be protected by the patent. It is these claims which have legal
significance -- the detailed description merely sets the stage for the claims.
An individual is an inventor if
he or she made a material contribution to what is set forth as the invention in
one or more of the claims. It is very
helpful to have such contributions documented and dated. The fact that an individual may have made a
contribution to the design set forth in the detailed description does not
constitute inventorship if that particular aspect of the design is not
specifically set forth in the claims.
An individual is an inventor if
that individual originally suggests an item claimed. Other types of contributions, such as
suggesting that a prior concept is unworkable, promoting the original thought
of another, or modifying the original thought of another in a manner not
claimed as invention, may be valuable engineering contribution, and perhaps
even more valuable than originating the concept, but it is only the originator
of a concept claimed who is specified as an inventor.
Many inventions are the joint
inventions of two or more inventors. Each person named as an inventor in a joint
patent application need not have contributed something to each claim. Under certain circumstances we will need to
know who the inventors are on a claim-by-claim basis. Therefore, as you read over the application
and claims, please note directly on the draft copy of the application (or on a
separate piece of paper), the name(s) of the inventor(s) for each claim and
send the list to us for our files
Note that any listed inventor is an equal owner of the patent, unless an
assignment is properly recorded at the USPTO indicating otherwise.
NOTICE- PPH: If you have a pending PCT patent application on this invention, or if you have already entered a patent application into any foreign country, then because your claims are deemed patentable in the allowance notice then you are eligible for accelerating those PCT or foreign patent claims under the PPH program. See these articles to better understand the PPH process:
Under the PPH program, your US NOA will normally accelerate and make certain you’re getting a patent allowance in the other countries on those approved claims within 3-6 months (instead of years, and cuts prosecution costs dramatically), and 90% of the time they just accept the NOA report finding and allow the foreign patent applications. Hence, unless, it is too late to amend the PCT, or you are looking (to fight) for broader claims internationally, it is highly advisable that you have us amend your PCT claim to match our final claim that were allowed. We charge a fee to prepare, file, and handle the PCT amendment process.
To have us handle this for you please add that to the PPH fee to begin this work.
NOTICE- BY
LAW YOU MUST DO THE FOLLOWING OR RISK YOUR FUTURE PATENT BECOMING INVALID: If you have related (in any
way) US or foreign or international (e.g., a PCT filing) patent
application prosecution which has discovered prior-art (e.g., in a search
report or foreign patent office action) not already cited to the USPTO, then
the USPTO requires that it must be submitted ASAP in an
Information Disclosure Statement (IDS). If so, please provide us
with a list of the prior-art cited, and add the USPTO's IDS fee, and our IDS preparation fee. Likewise, the USPTO also requires the
disclosure to them of any US patent application you have filed that is related
to this case in any way; otherwise you risk your future patent becoming being
rendered invalid by presumed inequitable conduct. If
we do not receive a payment and instructions to file any prior-art or other
cases on your behalf, we assume that you are handling the matter yourself.
Pricing
| Price | 400.00 |
|---|
| Minimum pre-payment | 20 |
|---|
View the original dynamic service page