In a previous post, I asked:
The USPTO PatFT page for Patent Number Search lists three examples for reexamination patent numbering:
Re-examination — RX29,194 RE29183 RE00125
However, if you type in those three “example” numbers into the search box, you get a “PN/RX29,194: 0 patents” error and two reissue patents. It is odd that the USPTO examples aren’t valid…
Anyone know of a valid re-examination number (for a project I’m working on)?
Mike Brown, in a comment, noted that “I was recently working on a re-examination, and needed to find examples. The easiest way is to search by serial number – use the “90? series for ex-parte re-examinations, and “95? series for inter-partes. For example: APN/90005727 is an ex-parte case, APN/95000050 is an inter-partes.”
However, it still didn’t answer the exact question I had. So, for my project…I dug deeper.
Once a reexamination has been concluded, the Patent Office issues a “Certificate of Reexamination” that denotes how the issued patent was corrected by the reexamination. That “Certificate of Reexam.” is then attached to the original patent’s images (but not full text) on the USPTO site. Example: USPN 5,108,388.
Frustratingly, I still ask two questions:
1. Why does the PatFT give examples for reexaminations that are either null (RX29,194) or are for reissues (RE29183, RE00125)?
2. What is a valid reissue [reexamination] number (for use on PatFT or even PAIR)? Is the PatFT page in error for listing examples? Is there another way to search?
Some example reexamination numbers…in case one of you can figure it out (from the “U.S. Patent Number Guide” generated by Michael White):
- Ex Parte Reexamination #1 relates to USPN 4,104,156
- Ex Parte Reexamination #7864 relates to USPN 5,343,123
- Inter Parte Reexamination #1 relates to USPN 6,232,427
- Inter Parte Reexamination #118 relates to USPN 6,696,316
Perhaps I should just ask Mr. White…
Update. Mr. White replied to me, noting that:
I have no idea what these so-called “example” re-examination numbers are. They are definitely not reexamination numbers. As far as I know, there is no way to search reexamination application serial numbers in PatFT. Reexamination certificates are not OCRed or indexed. (A standing complaint among professional patent searchers.) Their numbers are not searchable in the APN field. You can only retrieve them by retrieving the patent document to which they’re attached. Obviously, the person who put together these “helpful” examples was not familiar with PTO documents or data. (Probably a contractor.)
However, rexam serial numbers are searchable in Public/Private PAIR using the format “90nnnnnn” for ex parte and “95nnnnnn” for inter partes. There appear to be PAIR records for ex partes back to the mid 1980s but file wrapper documents are only available from ~2003 forward.
Issue: TESS times out on a user if the user stops using it for a very short period of time. While that, itself, is quite annoying (I can’t think of any other website I use that tells me that my session has “timed out”), the REAL annoying part is that the time out page doesn’t return you to the TESS search page. Instead, it dumps you back to the USPTO home page, requiring the user to navigate back to the TESS search page.
