Effective December 19, 2011, applicants may request Prioritized Examination for applications concurrent with, or subsequent to, the filing of a Request for Continued Examination. A Request for Continued Examination is a procedure under which a U.S. patent application that has received a final rejection is returned to the Examiner for additional reconsideration. That is, the Examiner will re-examine the U.S. patent application essentially as a new application, and continue to evaluate the merits of the invention described therein.
This Stroock Special Bulletin summarizes changes to Prioritized Examination and the potential implications for applicants.
