SAWS Program Cancelled!!
04.01.15
A few weeks ago we wrote about the United States Patent & Trademark Office’s “Sensitive Application Warning System” (SAWS).
This secret program provided many additional levels of scrutiny and years of delay in the prosecution of a patent application before the USPTO. The applicant was not informed that an application was placed into the SAWS program, and many examiners, as well as the USPTO, were unwilling to respond to an inquiry as to whether a particular application was subjected to SAWS. As a result, unknowing applicants spent years and significant sums of money seeking issuance of a patent, an event which may never have occurred.
It was recently announced by USPTO management that the SAWS program is being retired. Cancellation of the program is effective immediately and applications currently in the program are now being moved through prosecution. It was also announced that any future similar programs would be disclosed to the public before implementation.
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