Intellectual Property Client Alert: USPTO Deadline Extensions
The Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) extended the time to file certain patent documents and to pay certain required fees that otherwise would have been due on or after March 27, 2020.
The notice of the extension cited the authority of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) in its policy change.
For small and micro entities only, filings that would have been deemed timely filed if filed by June 1, 2020 will now be deemed timely filed if filed by July 1, 2020. In granting the extension, the USPTO expressly recognized that the COVID-19 pandemic “continues to impose various hardships, especially on small businesses and individual inventors”.
Large entities will also be entitled to relief under the notice. However, large entities may only receive assistance on a case-by case basis using the currently existing tools of a petition for an extension of time or a petition to revive.
For all entities, the USPTO will extend its waiver of the petition fee for filing a petition for the revival of applications that became abandoned on or before June 30, 2020, if accompanied by a statement that the delay in filing or payment was due to the COVID-19 outbreak.