Patent Office to Formally Require Lawyers for Foreign Filers

The US Patent and Trademark Office is finalizing a rule requiring foreign patent applicants to be represented by a registered practitioner, which it said would “harmonize patent filing practice” in the US with other countries’ intellectual property offices.

The rule would increase efficiency by reducing the number of applicants representing themselves pro se and allow the agency to enforce compliance and mitigate fraud more effectively, according to the rule set to publish Friday in the Federal Register. The rule will come into force 120 days after its publication.

The PTO proposed the rule in December, saying it had noticed an ...