United States patent law Under United States law, a patent is a right granted to the inventor of a (1) process, machine, article of manufacture, or composition of matter, (2) that is new, useful, and non-obvious. A patent is the right to exclude others, for a limite ...

, a petition to make special (PTMS) is a formal request submitted to the

United States Patent and Trademark Office The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is an agency in the U.S. Department of Commerce that serves as the national patent office and trademark registration authority for the United States. The USPTO's headquarters are in Al ...

(USPTO) asking that a

patent application A patent application is a request pending at a patent office for the grant of a patent for an invention described in the patent specification and a set of one or more claims stated in a formal document, including necessary official forms and rel ...

be examined ahead of the other pending applications in the same technological art.

Background and rationale

Normally patent applications in a given technological art are examined in the order that they are filed in under the "first come, first served" principle. The patent office has realized, however, that some

invention An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition, idea or process. An invention may be an improvement upon a machine, product, or process for increasing efficiency or lowering cost. It may also be an entirely new concept. If an i ...

s deserve special attention and that patent applications covering these inventions should be examined as quickly as possible. If an invention falls into one of the special categories, the applicant (e.g.

inventor An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition, idea or process. An invention may be an improvement upon a machine, product, or process for increasing efficiency or lowering cost. It may also be an entirely new concept. If an i ...

) can petition to have it examined early. A petition to make special can be granted because: * one of the inventors is over the age of 65 or is ill to the point where they may not be available to assist in the prosecution of the patent, * the head of a government agency requests that the application be made special, * the patent relates to certain areas including: quality of the environment, development of energy resources, or terrorism, * the applicant wishes to take part in accelerated examination as described below, or * the applicant has received a positive indication of allowability in another jurisdiction and is participating in the Patent Prosecution Highway.

Accelerated examination

Effective in August 2006, the USPTO introduced an accelerated patent examination procedure in an effort to allow inventors a speedy evaluation of an application with a final disposition within 12 months. The procedure requires additional information to be submitted with the application and also includes an interview with the examiner. The first accelerated patent was granted on March 15, 2007, with a 6-month issuance time.

Petitions to make special and business methods

Petitions to make special are particularly important for timely examination of

business method patent Business method patents are a class of patents which disclose and claim new methods of doing business. This includes new types of e-commerce, insurance, banking and tax compliance etc. Business method patents are a relatively new species of paten ...

s. Projected delays in examination of business method patents range from 4 to 14 years. This is primarily due to the step change in business method filings after the 1998 '' State Street Bank decision'' combined with the difficulty in hiring and training qualified patent examiners in the financial services arts (e.g.

insurance Insurance is a means of protection from financial loss in which, in exchange for a fee, a party agrees to compensate another party in the event of a certain loss, damage, or injury. It is a form of risk management, primarily used to hedge ...

and

banking A bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital markets. Because ...

). It is reported http://www.marketsandpatents.com/IPB-06152006.html
that a PTMS for Accelerated Examination can cut the time to get a patent to issue in the business method area from more than five years to less than two. First office actions can issue in as little as six months from the filing date of the application and notices of allowable subject matter have issued in just over a year.

References

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External links

United States patent law