United States Patent and Trademark Office October 21, 2009 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

In an effort to avoid duplication of work and to expedite the patent examination process, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has been developing work-sharing initiatives in which an office uses, to the maximum extent practicable, the work already done by another office. The USPTO is conducting a roundtable to obtain input from diverse sources in the patent community and/or the public sector to evaluate views on work sharing. The roundtable is open to the public. The USPTO plans to invite a number of roundtable participants from patent user groups, practitioners, industry, independent inventor organizations, academia, and Government. To ensure that the USPTO is receiving a balanced array of views on work sharing, the USPTO also plans to have a few ``at-large'' participants based upon requests received in response to this notice. To ensure that all who are speaking will have a meaningful chance to do so, the number of participants in the roundtable is limited. Those who wish to participate in the roundtable must do so by written request. Members of the public who wish solely to attend and observe the roundtable need not submit a request.