Detailed Description of Services

Accelerated Examination Search
Accelerated Examination Search Costs
As of August 26th, 2006, the USPTO has established procedures whereby a patent application filed in the USPTO's Electronic Filing System may be examined out of turn if the applicant files an acceptable petition to make special under the accelerated examination program. The goal of the accelerated examination program is to render a decision on patentability in one year. All petitions to make special, except those based on the applicant's health or the patent prosecution highway pilot program, will be handled under the accelerated examination program.

Express Search now offers an accelerated examination search designed to meet the specific pre-examination search requirements of the USPTO for support of petition for accelerated examination. Our search includes:

  1. A classification search of US patents and published patent applications based on the disclosed invention under the current United States Patent Classification system (USPC). We consult the search notes listed in the Manual of Classification to expand the scope of the search.
  2. A key word search of the US patents and published patent applications based on the disclosed invention using terms recognized in the art given their broadest reasonable interpretation. We focus on individual features by themselves and in combination.
  3. A key word search of foreign patent documents including sources suggested under the PCT Minimum Documentation Requirements as well as other sources such as the USPTO Universal Public Workstation or external databases.
  4. A key word search of the suggested Non-Patent Literature (NPL) resources from the current USPTO search templates for the appropriate primary classifications. Additionally, we search appropriate NPL sources suggested by the PCT Minimum Documentation Requirements.
  5. Additional search tools (e.g., nucleic acid or protein sequence searching tools) may be identified under the USPTO search templates. When these tools are suggested, we will provide the client with an estimate of any additional database costs and time requirements. Elimination of such search resources requires specific justification within the accelerated examination search report.


Our search report includes the US and IPC classes and subclasses searched as well as the search strategy used for all text searching of both patent and non-patent literature. We include a listing of all external databases referenced in the course of the search. This format is suitable for inclusion in a pre-examination search document as outlined by the USPTO.

Our search results provide comments on the cited references designed to meet the IDS requirements of Identification under ‚§1.98(a)(3)(iv)(A). We disclose, where appropriate, the column, line, paragraph, figure and claim that caused the art to be cited.

We guarantee that this pre-examination search will be considered sufficient to support a petition for accelerated examination. If there are any specific USPTO identified deficiencies that require further research by the applicant, Express Search will update the pre-examination search at no additional charge.

The additional IDS requirements for correlation under ‚§1.98(a)(3)(iv)(B) and for non-cumulative description under ‚§1.98(a)(3)(v) relate to specific claim language and are outside of the scope of our search results. The requirements for patentability justification under ‚§1.98(a)(3)(vi) varies based on the period in which the IDS is filed and are also outside the scope of our search results.

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Notes: Hourly estimates provided upon project review. Copy, PTO, postage and other disbursements billed where applicable. Copies of patents provided with printed results $2.50/ea. There is no charge for patents provided with electronic search results.

Standard turnaround: two weeks. RUSH turnaround: one week for $80/hour or $350 for fixed-price novelty searches. Minimum Billing: $30. Prices effective October 1, 2007 and subject to change without notice. Liability is limited to the cost of services rendered.