Waiting Time Prior To The First Office Action On A Patent Application

Shorten the Waiting Time  

There are a few techniques to expedite your utility patent application, but only a handful of them will move your application ahead of the pack. Here are some ways to skip forward in line: 

1. Inventor’s age or health: Based on the age of the inventor, utility patent applications can be processed more quickly. A petition to make an exception based on age may be submitted to the USPTO by an inventor who is at least 65 years old in order to expedite the review of the patent application. The PDF-based e-petition submitted using the USPTO EFS online system will automatically and immediately be approved. 
   The inventor should send a copy of their birth certificate, driver’s license, or passport to their patent attorney as proof of age. The patent application will be advanced out of order if a petition based on the inventor’s age is approved. This indicates that the patent application will go ahead of the pack and get a preliminary review sooner than the typical first Office Action wait time. 
   A petition to make special may be filed with supporting documentation if the applicant’s health makes it likely that they won’t be able to participate in the patent application process. A doctor’s certificate or another type of medical certificate is acceptable as proof. Since there isn’t an electronic petition based on health today, a petition must be carefully drafted to satisfy all petition requirements. 
2.  Track One Prioritized Examination: If you need to move your ideas rapidly, you can acquire a final disposition from the USPTO’s Track One prioritized examination in roughly a year. For a more expedited review of your utility and plant patent applications, the USPTO offers Track One program.  
   With fewer prerequisites than the current accelerated examination program and without requiring you to conduct a pre-examination search, Track One grants your application special status. Detailed information on the same is available at https://www.uspto.gov/patents/initiatives/usptos-prioritized-patent-examination-program.  
3.  Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH): The USPTO offers the Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) initiative in association with a number of international patent offices. Only before a first Office action is mailed can a candidate submit a free petition for admission to the PPH program. Only if a foreign patent office that participates in the program has acknowledged that at least one claim in a related patent application is acceptable, is a U.S. patent application eligible for the program. 
   Since the application will move up in the examination queue upon admission into the PPH program, the USPTO’s initial Office action estimate may help an applicant appropriately timing their PPH file and receive an Office action more quickly than anticipated.