Federal Circuit Agrees to Rehear Controversial Tafas v. Doll

On July 6th, the Federal Circuit granted a petition to rehear the Tafas v. Doll case which a 3 judge panel previously held that the USPTO had authority to adopt rules limiting the number of patent claims in a patent application and the number of requests for continued examation (RCE), although it could not limit the number of continuation applications.  This is an important case for inventors and businesses because if the previous decision is upheld patent applicants (1) will be significantly limited in the number of claims they can include in a patent application and (2) have to file continuation applications instead of the faster RCE route.  See the Tafas v. Doll Order.