Pre-Appeal Brief Results in Re-Opening of Prosecution

February, 14th, 2018

Categories: Blog, News Tags: patent, USPTO, whipgroup

WHIPgroup attorneys filed a Pre-Appeal Brief in a patent application related to a method for providing a fault tolerance in an industrial automation and control system. The Examiner had rejected all claims as allegedly being anticipated by an earlier patent publication. In the Pre-Appeal Brief, WHIPgroup attorneys argued that the Office Action improperly failed to clearly articulate the Examiner’s reasoning for the rejection, and that the cited reference failed to disclose several of the claimed features. The USPTO agreed to re-opening prosecution.

WHIPgroup thus avoided the need to file a Request for Continued Examination (RCE) or full Appeal Brief to overcome the improper rejection.