Hot off the Federal Register, USPTO plan to help small entities move patent applications more quickly

During these tough times, it seems everybody's asking "Where's my stimulus?" For some small-entity patent applicants, the USPTO has come through with a Patent Application Backlog Reduction Stimulus Plan.

The USPTO announced in Friday's Federal Register a program that would allow small entities with multiple pending applications to elect to abandon one application and allow one further down the queue to take its place. That means that, for example, if my application from 2006 is no longer of use to me, but I have one from 2008 that's looking promising, I can request that the USPTO dump the 2006 app and move the 2008 up to the older application's spot in line. It's a win-win: the inventor gets a quicker patent issue and the USPTO gets to drop some dead-weight patent applications from their workload.

Read the full announcement here to get the details.