Brinckerhoff Comments on USPTO Practice Penalizing Applicants

Partner Courtenay Brinckerhoff was quoted in a Law360 article, “USPTO Leaves It Up To Applicants To Flag Patent Term Errors,” about the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s practice of requiring applicants who object to the way it calculates the term of a patent to file a request for reconsideration and pay a fee to have it changed.

Brinckerhoff said the $200 fee for a reconsideration request can really add up for a company with a large volume of patent applications. She said she was “curious, frustrated and annoyed” by the patent office’s decision to impose a fee on applicants who request a reconsideration.

“It just doesn’t seem right that you should have to pay,” she said, citing a recent court decision saying the practice unfairly penalizes applicants, “but if you want to get treated in accordance with law, you have to pay a fee.”