âExtend patent bar to design practitionersâ, say academics
16-02-2021
06-04-2020
The US Patent and Trademark Office has been urged to extend patent bar eligibility to design patent practitioners to increase the number of women patent attorneys and inventors.
This latest development comes after former USPTO director Andrei Iancu wrote to senators last month outlining policy changes under consideration by the office after senators expressed concern over a lack of women patent attorneys.
Issued on February 8, the letter held that the proposed change would help diversify the patent bar and would also remove barriers to women in patenting.
Eligibility requirements unjustifiable’
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USPTO Urged To Expand Patent Bar Eligibility To Designers
Law360 (February 12, 2021, 6:48 PM EST) Expanding patent bar eligibility requirements to design patent practitioners would increase the number of women patent attorneys and women patentees, a former Ropes & Gray LLP intellectual property partner and the director of the IP program at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law have argued in a letter to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Jeanne Curtis, who teaches at the University of New Hampshire School of Law, co-authored the letter with Chris Buccafusco, director of the intellectual property and information law program at the Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University. Curtis had previously directed the Google Project for Patent Diversity.