Compact Prosecution 2.0 — Changing The U.S. Patent Examination Paradigm

William F. Smith of Woodcock Washburn LLP and Joseph Mallon of Knobbe Martens (colleagues on the IPO Patent Office Practice Committee)** have prepared a white paper that encourages us to take a step back from the current U.S. patent examination paradigm, and move forward to "Compact Prosecution 2.0." Their proposal would eliminate two significant patent examination "dead zones" and result in a more efficient and cost-effective patent examination process.

Compact Prosecution 1.0

The current examination paradigm operates under principles of "compact prosecution" that reward examiners for quickly advancing an application to a "final" outcome–final rejection, allowance, RCE, or abandonment. From an examiner's perspective, all of the final outcomes are equal. On the other hand, an applicant's objective is allowance. Thus, applicants must continue prosecution by filing after-final responses and/or RCEs. However, both of those steps involve "dead zones" where the ability