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Galactic Foresight Required: NASA's Proposed Rule Limits Advance Waivers to Yet-to-Be-Conceived Inventions

Client Alert | less than 1 min read | 10.23.14

Earlier this month, NASA proposed to amend its patent regulations to require contractors requesting an advance waiver of the government's domestic rights in inventions made under a NASA contract to identify with specificity any inventions or classes of inventions that the contractor "believes will be made under the contract." Thus, in order to obtain an effective waiver, the contractor must predict what "inventions or classes of inventions" the contractor might make under aNASA contract, which, given the unpredictable nature of R&D efforts, may not cover the inventions that the contractor actually develops.


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Client Alert | 3 min read | 07.21.25

Bypass Applications in U.S. Patent Practice: A Strategic Alternative to National Stage Entry

Applicants entering the U.S. national phase of an international (PCT) application have two options: enter the national stage under 35 U.S.C. §371 or file a “bypass” national application under 35 U.S.C. § 111(a). A bypass application allows applicants to file a new U.S. application that claims priority to the PCT application, treating the PCT application as a U.S. parent and bypassing the traditional national phase entry. Depending on the applicant’s goals and strategy, bypass applications can be filed as a continuation, divisional, or continuation-in-part (CIP)....