Patent application moratorium still in effect.
1. Congress continues to refuse to give BLM any funds to process applications.
2. The Federal Register just
announced a new price the BLM may charge as a fee for adjudicating (validity exam) a mineral patent AFTER having received and accepted an application.
3. Return to step 1 above.
It's a vicious cycle. The
rules for obtaining a patent are still on the books but without authorization by Congress to accept and process applications, the BLM will not be able to charge the new fee for anything other than a patent application submitted before Oct 1, 1994.
Interesting court
case on validity exams.
