0651-AD10 201610 The Regulatory Plan and the Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions 0651 Patent and Trademark Office PTO 0600 Department of Commerce DOC Rule Recognizing Privileged Communications Between Clients and Patent Practitioners at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board

This proposed rule would recognize explicitly the same privilege for communications between clients and U.S. patent agents and between clients and foreign patent practitioners as exists between clients and U.S. attorneys, protecting those communications from discovery in trial practice proceedings at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (Office or USPTO). The rule would apply to inter partes review ("IPR"), post-grant review ("PGR"), the transitional program for covered business method patents ("CBM"), and derivation proceedings.

]]> Substantive, Nonsignificant First Time Published in The Unified Agenda Proposed Rule Stage No No 37 CFR 42.62(a) 125 Stat 284 (2011) Pub. L. 112-29 No NPRM 11/00/2016 NPRM Comment Period End 01/00/2017 Final Rule 02/00/2017 Final Rule Effective 02/00/2017 No No None No No No No Soma Saha Patent Examiner 0651 Patent and Trademark Office PTO 571 272-8652 591 273-8652 soma.saha@uspto.gov P. O. Box 1450, Alexandria VA 22313