Abandonments
When an abandoned application is revived and the time between the mailing date of the last Office action and the date the revived case is forwarded to the examiner is more than 2 years, the count for reviving the application will not be deducted from the examiner’s productivity. If prosecution is resumed, the examiner will be credited another disposal count at the end of prosecution.
Abandonment Processing Agreement covers when abandonments are processed by the examiner or support staff. It also covers if an application is revived between 1 and 2 years after the mailing date of the last Office action, the count is not deducted from the examiner's productivity but no additional credit is given for resumed prosecution.
Abandonment Processing Agreement
371 Abandonments Applications with Improperly filed RCEs
An agreement was reached between POPA and management regarding RCEs that were filed and improperly entered in certain 371 applications. Approximately 1500 RCEs are impacted. These RCEs may be in varying stages of prosecution. RCEs that were filed after the statutory period for response will be abandoned by TSS in a court-neutral manner, which will prevent examiners from losing counts when the application is revived. No counts will be given for the abandonment, and no counts will be deducted when/if the application is revived. If no response is received by 9/1/21, the examiner will be credited the disposal counts.