Trademark News

USPTO Opens New Electronic Facility to Hear Patent and Trademark

The USPTO is committed to the President’s management agenda goal of citizen-centered operations,” said Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO Jon Dudas. “Our electronic hearing room is another way in which we are fulfilling the President’s goals. The new cyber hearing room saves our customers time and money, because they don’t need to travel to our office in order to be heard.”

The BPAI held its first set of hearings this afternoon in the new Electronic Hearing Room while the appellants participated electronically from Chicago. The electronic hearing room allows for an oral hearing on a patent appeal or other patent and trademark cases from remote locations anywhere in the world. While three administrative patent or trademark judges preside from the USPTO in Alexandria, Va., an attorney can present a client’s case from across the country or across the ocean.

Through the use of a large plasma screen in the new hearing room and computers, patent and trademark judges are able to see the presenting attorney and receive evidentiary documents electronically. Hearings are conducted as usual even though the parties are hundreds or thousands of miles apart.

Many law firms have purchased the necessary equipment so their attorneys can conduct electronic hearings with BPAI and TTAB. Attorneys can also participate in oral hearings from Patent and Trademark Depository Libraries located in Sunnyvale, California; Detroit, Michigan; and at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas.

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	Did You Know?
	The Director shall determine whether or not to suspend the patent inter partes reexamination proceeding. If a patent in the process of inter partes reexamination is or becomes involved in litigation, the Director shall determine whether or not to suspend the inter partes reexamination proceeding.