By Michael Burleigh
Today, April 9, 2026, the USPTO published a Federal Register notice announcing the Patent Cooperation Treaty Informed Examination Request (PIER) Pilot Program to “assess the inventory and pendency impacts of requiring applicants to affirmatively request examination in view of PCT international phase work products.” As to the intended effect of this new pilot program, the notice states that “the USPTO expects that requiring applicants to indicate that examination is desired upon review of international phase work products present in the application file will contribute to efforts to reduce inventory and pendency.”
Under this brand-new program, the USPTO will select certain unexamined applications that entered the national phase under 35 U.S.C. § 371 and issue a requirement for information under 37 CFR § 1.105. Only certain 371 national stage applications will be selected, 111(a) applications are not eligible. Selection is at the USPTO's sole discretion and applicants may not petition to participate in or be removed from the program.
In response to the requirement for information, applicants must select one of three options:
- proceed with examination;
- delay examination for 12 months at no cost (note: this route will count against patent term adjustment under 35 U.S.C. 154(b));
- or expressly abandon the application (failure to respond to the requirement for information will also result in abandonment).
In addition to making the above selection, the applicant must also make reference to “applicable PCT international work products” of the 371 application (i.e., the ISR and Written Opinion). The response, including examination selection (proceed/delay/abandon) and the reference to the ISR/WO, must be made via new form PTO/SB/478. At the time of publication of this blog article, no such form is yet available from the USPTO forms website (www.uspto.gov/PatentForms).
