By Britain Eakin

Law360 (September 21, 2020, 6:29 PM EDT) -- Despite agency efforts to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Director Andrei Iancu said Monday that patent filings for the year grew more slowly than projected, while maintenance fees have declined.

While the agency anticipated a 2.5% growth in newly filed patent applications for this fiscal year, which runs from Oct. 1, 2019, through Sept. 30, 2020, Iancu said during a keynote address at the annual Intellectual Property Owner's Association conference that such filings grew by 0.1%.

"We saw strong improvement over the previous year through February," Iancu said. "However, since March, filings have been in decline."

Iancu also said that requests for continued examinations through the end of August are down 10.4% compared to last year, and accelerated through the second half of this fiscal year. And patent maintenance fee collections, which must be paid three times during the life of a patent, have dropped by 4.1%, which translates into $19.5 million dollars in lost fees, the director said. While renewal rates typically drop for a short time during economic downturns and then bounce back, Iancu noted that the pandemic could throw a curveball into that pattern.

"We expect that will hold true now, but we've never had a period of time quite like this, so we will see what happens," Iancu said.

But the director said there is also some good news. Patent applications from small and microentities — which refer to small businesses, independent inventors, universities and nonprofits — are at a historic high. During the first 11 months of fiscal year 2020, this group has filed 114,467 applications, as compared to 113,020 for the same time period in fiscal year 2019, USPTO press secretary Paul Fucito told Law360.

Also, trademark filings are up 3.2% over last year, which Iancu said was slightly higher than the agency expected. However, the director noted that trademark maintenance fee collections have been lower than anticipated, with the agency projecting a $12.3 million loss.

Iancu noted that the agency has taken a number of steps to help patent and trademark applicants weather the pandemic by waiving certain fees, extending deadlines and allowing all documents and applications to be filed electronically.

The agency also implemented a priority examination pilot program in May for patent applications from small businesses related to the prevention and treatment of the coronavirus that are subject to approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Iancu said the agency aims to reach a final decision on the prioritized applications within six months of the application earning prioritized status.

The agency also launched a similar program for trademark applications in June that aims to prioritize certain trademark and service mark applications related to COVID-19, which could expedite the review process by roughly two months.

Finally, Iancu touted a USPTO initiative launched in May, Patents 4 Partnership, an online marketplace for patents related to the prevention, treatment and diagnosis of COVID-19 that he said is intended to connect the owners of such patents with potential licensees.

"It is our hope that Patents 4 Partnership will accelerate the commercialization of products and technologies to address the current health crisis," Iancu said.

--Additional reporting by Adam Lidgett, Hailey Konnath, Ryan Davis, Dorothy Atkins and Tiffany Hu. Editing by Haylee Pearl.

Update: This article has been updated with additional information about the number of patent applications the USPTO received from small and microentities.

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