The Patent Office hosted a workshop on prosecuting appeals with the Patent Appeals Commission this week.
The sessions were hosted on 15 and 16 April at the Patent Office in Kuningan (Jakarta), and concentrated on what the new Patent Law (expected to come into force this year) will mean for prosecution of appeals filed with the Patent Appeals Commission. One interesting change is that the Commission will be able to deal with appeals relating to any part of a patent specification (e.g. description), whereas currently appeals are limited to substantive issues (e.g. claims). Another is that failure to respond to an Office Action will result in an application being rejected, whereas currently where a response is not filed applications are deemed voluntarily withdrawn - this move to a system of rejecting applications means that decisions can be appealed to the Commission.
The Patent Office doesn’t yet publish examination guidelines, and these sessions are a great way for IP Consultants to keep abreast of current practice.
Attendees included the Director of Patents, Patent Office examiners, and IP Consultants. Our Bagus Lestanto (Associate) and Eko Maryanto (Clerk) are pictured in this photograph of attendees:
