In an October 25, 2018 Federal Register Notice, the USPTO
announced staged implementation of the first phase of an initiative
aimed at "leveraging electronic resources to retrieve
information" of record in one patent application for
consideration in another. While the first phase of the Access to
Relevant Prior Art Initiative is limited to importing citations
from a parent application into its immediate child, it represents
an important first step towards reducing the burdens of satisfying
the Duty of Disclosure.
The Duty Of Disclosure In Continuing Applications
The substantive aspects of the Duty of Disclosure to the USPTO
are set forth in 37 CFR § 1.56, while the procedural rules
governing how to comply (i.e., the rules governing
Information Disclosure Statements) are set forth in 37 CFR
§§ 1.97 and 1.98. Further guidance is provided in MPEP
§ 609. As most stakeholders know, citations listed in an IDS
and considered by the examiner are printed on the front page
