The United States Patent and Trademark Office has announced the new Cancer Moonshot Expedited Examination Pilot Program, in an effort to accelerate innovation in the health and medical fields.
Beginning on Feb. 1, the program expedites examination for a broad scope of technologies to prevent cancer and cancer mortality, in support of President Joe Biden’s Cancer Moonshot.
“Innovation in the field of cancer prevention and treatment is how we will accomplish President Biden’s goal of reducing the cancer mortality rate by at least 50% within 25 years through the renewed Cancer Moonshot initiative,” Kathi Vidal, under secretary of commerce for intellectual property and director of the USPTO, said in a statement. “The USPTO is excited to offer this new, expansive pilot program to help accelerate the patenting of key technology to bring those solutions to market and end cancer once and for all.”
The USPTO said that patent applications related to the qualifying technologies will be advanced out of turn for examination and will be reviewed earlier. The program is scheduled to run until either Jan.31, 2025, or the date by which the USPTO accepts a total of 1,000 grantable petitions, whichever is earlier.
The agency said that the new program replaces the USPTO’s Cancer Immunotherapy Pilot Program, which was first implemented in 2016 and expedited examination for eligible patent applications pertaining to methods of treating a cancer using immunotherapy. That program ends on Jan. 31.
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