Changes to Patent Practice and Procedure

The Patent and Trademark Office (Office) is amending the rules of practice to simplify the requirements of the rules, rearrange portions of the rules for better context, and eliminate unnecessary rules or portions thereof as part of a government-wide effort to reduce the regulatory burden on the American public. Exemplary changes include: simplification of the procedure for filing continuation and divisional applications; amendment of a number of rules to permit the filing of a statement that errors were made without deceptive intent, without a requirement for a further showing of facts and circumstances; and elimination of the requirement that the inventorship be named in an application on the day of its filing, which eliminates the need for certain petitions to correct inventorship.