Changes To Facilitate Electronic Filing of Patent Correspondence

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (Office) is amending the rules of practice to support implementation of the Office's electronic filing system (EFS) for patent correspondence, and in particular, the Web-based electronic filing system (EFS-Web). EFS- Web permits most patent correspondence, that is, most patent applications and other patent related documents, to be submitted in a portable document file ("PDF") format. The major changes that the Office is adopting are changes to provide patent users with a process for showing that correspondence submitted in an application which has entered national stage under 35 U.S.C. 371 submitted via EFS-Web was actually received by the Office by relying on the acknowledgment receipt, and to treat certain correspondence as received, for timeliness purposes, as of the date submitted by applicant rather than the date received by the Office if the correspondence is filed via EFS- Web.