[Pct] actual examiners do IPEA/US work? (was Different ISA and IPEA?)

[Timothy Snowden]

About a year ago an Examiner mentioned that they were having to get used 
to PCT again because Chapter II proceedings had recently been brought 
back into the normal art units, which hadn't been that way for years. My 
understanding (no documentation for this) was that the USPTO essentially 
had outsourced even Chapter II proceedings outside of the normal art 
units for at least a time.

Again, that was just my understanding but I may be wrong on that because 
I normally don't use IPEA/US. I did notice on other cases I've seen that 
the US IPRP work products up until a few years ago seemed to match more 
of the ISA work product then a normal US examiner's work product, but 
that could have been biased based on my expectations.

On 6/9/2025 9:20 AM, Carl Oppedahl wrote:
> On 6/9/2025 7:56 AM, Timothy Snowden via Pct wrote:
>>
>> The US IPRP seems to be good quality lately (with my very limited 
>> experience with it), and /*now*/ that actual examiners are doing it 
>> seems to be respected by the US, but I shy away from it in most cases 
>> just because of the timing -- the one time I've done it in the past 
>> few years (because clients were US first and not even sure they were 
>> going to file outside of US but just wanted to preserve options), 
>> USPTO didn't get it there in time for national stage.
>>
> (emphasis added)
>
> This isn't a "now" thing.  Ever since the USPTO joined the PCT in 
> 1978, actual Examiners (USPTO employees in the Examining Corps) have 
> been doing IPEA/US work.  That has never changed in 47 years.
>
>
>
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