An examination support document (ESD) was a submission formerly proposed to be required to be made 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 Alex ...
by an applicant for a United States
patent
A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an sufficiency of disclosure, enabling disclo ...
under certain circumstances. An ESD would be required to comprise at least:
*A statement that a
prior art
Prior art (also known as state of the art or background art) is a concept in patent law used to determine the patentability of an invention, in particular whether an invention meets the novelty and the inventive step or non-obviousness criteria ...
search was done including the fields of search and search logic;
*A listing of the references deemed most closely related to the
claims pending in the
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 ...
;
*An identification in each reference of all of the limitations in each claim found in said reference.
*A detailed explanation pointing out how each independent claim is allowable over the prior art; and
*A showing of where each limitation in each claim is found in the specification the patent application.
As of November 1, 2007, examination support documents were to be required for each patent application that had more than 5 independent claims or more than 25 dependent claims that had not had a first
office action
In the United States, an Office action is a document written by an examiner in a patent or trademark examination procedure and mailed to an applicant for a patent or trademark. The expression is used in many jurisdictions.
Formally, the "O" is ...
on the merits of its claims.
Examination support documents were controversial. Many
US patent agents or attorneys felt that they would force an inventor to, in essence, examine his or her own application. Others felt that they would help speed up patent examination and improve patent quality.
The requirement never came into effect because of a preliminary injunction
["Deferred Examination of Patent Applications: Implications for Innovation Policy," Congressional Research Service](_blank)
/ref> and was abolished effective October 14, 2009.
/ref>
References
United States patent law
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