| General Information |
Referenced Items (101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125) |
(116) Advance Notice of Change to
"References Cited" on the
Front Page of a Patent
Beginning with patents printed after January 1, 2001, the United States
Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) will indicate references listed by a
patent examiner on a "Notice of References Cited," Form PTO-892, with an
asterisk in the "References Cited" section of the front page of a patent
document.
Indication of whether or not a reference was listed by the examiner will
be helpful in compiling statistical data related to prior art submissions
so that the USPTO can better consider whether changes are required to the
rules governing prior art statements. In the past, the Office has conducted
numerous surveys of application files for information regarding prior art
statements, manually reviewing the application files to retrieve
information regarding references cited. While future surveys will still
include manual review of application files, e.g., for the length of
documents cited by applicants, compiling data regarding information cited
by other than the examiner will be more efficient with this new indication.
Indication of a reference with an asterisk should not be considered to
reflect any significance other than that the reference was listed on a
"Notice of References Cited," Form PTO-892. When an examiner lists
references on a Form PTO-892, the examiner lists references that are
relied upon in a prior art rejection or mentioned as pertinent. See Manual
of Patent Examining Procedure (MPEP) Section 707.05(c), 7th Ed., Rev. 1
(Feb. 2000). The examiner does not list references which were previously
cited by the applicant (and initialed by an examiner) on an Information
Disclosure Statement, for example, on a PTOL-1449. See MPEP Sections 609
and 707.05(b), (c) and (d). No distinction will be made in the "References
Cited" section for other sources of references. Thus, references cited in a
protest, by an attorney or agent not acting in a representative capacity
but on behalf of a single inventor, and by the applicant will not be
"All electronic versions of the patent will have some indication of
which references were cited by the examiner. The paper version and the
electronic images of the front page will show an asterisk as indicated
below.
An example how the "References Cited" section of the patent will appear
is as follows:
[56] References Cited
U.S. PATENT DOCUMENTS
2,234,192 * 7/1955 Greene 75/507
4,991,048 8/1990 Larkin 206/207
5,000,186 12/1991 Amis 267/340
5,000,993 * 12/1991 Thomas et al 75/507
FOREIGN PATENT DOCUMENTS
9500000 * 6/1995 Belgium 75/507
2-00000 * 6/1990 Japan 75/507
9400000 9/1994 United Kingdom.
OTHER PUBLICATIONS
Hill, "Ferrous Precipitation," Journal of the American Defenestration
Association, Jan. 1989, Pages 34-46. *
Clymerhill-Irons, "Ferrous Ascension for the Eighties," Proceedings of
the International Ferrous Ascension Society, Jan.-Mar. 1979, Pages
1111-1163.
 Top of Notices (116) December 27, 2011 |
US PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE |
1373 CNOG 479 |
*cited by examiner
Questions regarding this notice may be directed to Karin Tyson,
Senior Legal Advisor, Office of Patent Legal Administration, Office of
the Deputy Commissioner for Patent Examination Policy, by telephone at
(703)306-3159, by facsimile at (703) 872- 9411, or by e-mail to
karin.tyson@uspto.qov.
Nov. 29, 2000 NICHOLAS P. GODICI
Commissioner for Patents
[1241 OG 105]