¶ 22.14 Submission Not Fully Responsive to Non-Final Office Action - Ex Parte Reexamination
The communication filed on [1] is not fully responsive to the prior Office action. [2]. The response appears to be bona fide, but through an apparent oversight or inadvertence, consideration of some matter or compliance with some requirement has been omitted. Patent owner is required to deal with the omission to thereby provide a full response to the prior Office action.
A shortened statutory period for response to this letter is set to expire [3] from the mailing date of this letter. If patent owner fails to timely deal with the omission and thereby provide a full response to the prior Office action, prosecution of the present reexamination proceeding will be terminated. 37 CFR 1.550(d).
Examiner Note:
1. In bracket 2, the examiner should explain the nature of the omitted point necessary to complete the response, i.e., what part of the Office action was not responded to. The examiner should also make it clear what is needed to deal with the omitted point.
2. In bracket 3, if the reexamination was requested by a third party requester, the examiner should insert "ONE MONTH or thirty days, whichever is longer". If the reexamination was requested by the patent owner, if the reexamination was ordered under 35 U.S.C. 257, or if it is a Director-ordered reexamination, the examiner should insert "TWO MONTHS".
3. This paragraph may be used for a patent owner communication that is not completely responsive to the outstanding (i.e., prior) Office action. See MPEP § 2266.01.
4. This practice does not apply where there has been a deliberate omission of some necessary part of a complete response.
5. This paragraph is only used for a response made prior to final rejection. After final rejection, an advisory Office action and Form PTOL 467 should be used, and the patent owner informed of any non-entry of the amendment.