April 2008

US court throws out USPTO's new rules on patent application size

Submitted by GPCI on Tue, 04/01/2008 - 18:41

April 1, 2008 - A U.S. court has thrown out the new U.S. Patent and Trademark Office rules designed to limit the size of patent applications, a ruling that pleased GlaxoSmithKline Plc.

The company, Europe's largest drugmaker, had been concerned that many of their patent applications would exceed the maximum application size and need to be refiled.

As the patent office takes an average of 32 months to approve or reject a patent, having to refile would deal a major blow to Glaxo and other large pharmaceutical companies with large patent portfolios.