According to a chart released by the U.S. PTO, about 26,500 provisional and non-provisional patent applications were filed on March 15, up from the about 2,500 applications that are filed on a typical day. The reason: inventors and their patent lawyers (including us) were racing to beat the March 16 deadline.
As we have said before in these newsletters, U.S. patent law changed on March 16. Now, after March 16, patent rights are terminated and lost forever if (a) no patent application has been filed, and (b) there has been a sale or offer for sale of the invention, a public use of the invention, description of the invention in a printed publication, or the invention is ‘otherwise available to the public.’ If you have an invention and intend to take any of these actions, please contact us first so that you do not inadvertently lose your U.S. patent rights.
— Robert Yarbrough, Esq.