Change to "Issue Notification" Procedure

   The "Issue Notification" informs applicants of the patent number and
issue date that has been assigned to a utility, design, plant, or
reissue application. The "Issue Notification" is now being mailed about
10 days before an application issues as a patent.

   The process of printing patents has recently been changed so that
patents are printed more efficiently with patents being issued four
weeks after payment of the issue fee and compliance with all formal
requiremenys. See Patents to Issue More Quickly After Issue Fee Payment,
1220 Off Gaz. Pat. Office 42 (March 9, 1999) and Filing of Continuing
Applications, Amendments, or Petitions after Payment of Issue Fee, 1221
Off. Gaz. Pat. Office 14 (April 6, 1999). In the past, the patent number
and issue date were assigned before the process of electronic capture of
the information to be printed as a patent began. If, during the
electronic capture process, illegible text, undecided petitions,
unentered amendments or the patent application was otherwise not ready
to be printed as a patent, a printer query would be generated. Since
printer queries could not always be resolved before the originally
scheduled issue date, the applications had to be removed from the
originally scheduled issue, and assigned another patent number and issue
date once the query had been resolved. This process of assigning a new
patent number and issue date was inefficient.

   Under the new shortened publication process, however, electronic capture
of the information to be printed in a patent begins as soon as an
allowed application is received in Office of Patent Publication, which
is well before the issue fee is paid. As a result, when the issue fee is
paid and processed by the Patent and Trademark Office (PTO), electronic
capture of the data to print the application as a patent should have
been completed and any queries addressed. Thus, under the new process,
the patent number and issue date are assigned to the application
approximately two weeks prior to the issue date, with the notification
being mailed a few days later. The instances of an "Issue Notification"
being mailed and a patent not issuing on the scheduled issue date should
be extremely rare.

   As a result of the new process, the PTO will be unable to grant a
request for an earlier assignment of a patent number and issue date or
to inform applicants of the patent number earlier than the mailing of
the "Issue Notification".

   If there are any questions or comments about this change in practice,
they should be forwarded to Brian Johnson, Supervisory Patent Examiner,
Systems and Contracts Division, Office of Patent Publication, by
facsimile at (703) 305-4372, by telephone at (703) 305-0899, or by
e-mail at brianl.johnson@uspto.gov or Karna Cooper, Paralegal
Specialist, Office of Patent Publication, by facsimile at (703)
305-4372, by telephone at (703) 305-5254, or by e-mail at
karna.cooper@uspto.gov.

April 28, 1999                                           NICHOLAS P. GODICI
                                  Acting Assistant Commissioner for Patents