United States Patent and Trademark Office OG Notices: 23 March 2004
Notice of Suspension Michael I. Kroll (Kroll), of Syosset, New York, is a patent attorney whose registration number is 26,755. The Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office has ordered Kroll be suspended for three years from practice before the United States Patent and Trademark Office in patent, and non-patent law cases. The suspension is for violating USPTO Disciplinary Rules ("DR") 10.36(a)(1) (proscribing charging and collecting a clearly excessive fee), DR 10.23(c)(2)(ii) (proscribing knowingly giving false or misleading information to the USPTO) and DR 10.85(a)(6) (proscribing participation in the creation of false evidence). This action is taken pursuant to the provisions of 35 U.S.C. 32, and 37 C.F.R. 10.156 and 10.159. The suspension will be stayed, so long as Respondent complies with the terms of the settlement agreement entered into on February 24, 2004. Those terms include refunding one-half of attorney fees, in accordance with an agreed-upon payment schedule, collected from 75 particular applicants for filing International Applications under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT). Those terms also include filing new Powers of Attorney to replace defective Powers of Attorney in all pending PCT cases in which Kroll signed his clients' names on the Power of Attorney forms. Upon any violation of any term of the settlement agreement during the period of the payment schedule, the stay will be vacated and Kroll, at that time, will serve a three year suspension. February 25, 2004 JAMES A. TOUPIN General Counsel United States Patent and Trademark Office on behalf of JON W. DUDAS Acting Undersecretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Acting Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office