Pro Bono Legal Aid for Inventors Offered in Patent Board Appeals

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office established a Pro Bono Program for under-resourced inventors in collaboration with the Patent Trial and Appeal Board Bar Association, the agency announced Thursday.

The program will provide qualified inventors with free representation from volunteer patent practitioners in PTAB proceedings. The PTAB Bar Association “willl serve as a national clearing house” connecting volunteer attorneys with eligible inventors, and will start soliciting volunteer applications immediately, the patent office’s press release said.

The program will initially help under-resourced inventors navigate ex parte appeals before PTAB. It will later expand to America Invents Act trials.

To qualify, inventors must live in the U.S., make less than three times the poverty line, and establish micro entity status under existing PTO guidelines. They also must apply within a month of the office action in which claims have been twice or finally rejected, and view the required training about the new program and the ex parte appeal process, the release said.

The new program comes nearly two months after the PTO launched a similar program on the trademark side, the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board Pro Bono Clearing House Program.

Both programs build off the Patent Pro Bono Program, which has matched more than 3,400 under-resourced inventors and small businesses with attorneys, resulting in 1,800 patent applications in 84,000 donated hours, the PTO said.