So that’s what “special dispatch” means?

According to 35 U.S.C. section 305, “[a]ll reexamination proceedings…including any appeal to the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences, will be conducted with special dispatch within the Office.” (emphasis added)

Mention of the standard of “special dispatch” amongst patent attorneys in the United States usually generates a few jeers and sarcastic snaps.

What does it mean? Who knows. But, in the reexamination of patents owned by NTP, a patent holding company currently embroiled in a very high profile patent litigation lawsuit with the maker of the popular BlackBerry e-mail device, the Patent and Trademark Office recently committed to following the standard and gave some insight as to what it means administratively.

“Given the district court’s concerns that the office has delayed the proceedings and the outstanding public interest in ensuring that these proceedings are acted upon with special dispatch, the office has assigned a dedicated examining team to handle all of the co-pending proceedings,” the Office said in a letter last week.

That’s a highly unusual move and probably reserved only for high profile cases like this one. Maybe it only applies in reexaminations that are connected to a current patent infringement lawsuit in a district court known for speed (i.e., the Rocket Docket of the Eastern District of Virginia or maybe even Rocket Docket II of the Eastern District of Texas). Maybe it’s something reserved for litigation suits that present interesting technological issues for the federal government.

The Office had trimmed 30 days from a response period for NTP in the reexamination and finalized that decision with the letter. Is that “special dispatch?” Seems strange, especially when you consider that the reexamination proceedings were initiated in 2002.

The standard is indeed vague, but that’s probably a good thing. The Office should have reasonable discretion to apply appropriate timeframes for reexamination proceedings, and those with the greatest potential public impact should probably be treated with “extra special dispatch,” which apparently is the case for the NTP reexamination.