2560 Revocation of Power of Attorney and Withdrawal of Attorney
MPEP SECTION SUMMARY
The revocation or withdrawal of an attorney may be submitted at any time; however, a revocation or withdrawal of an attorney filed after issuance of a patent is not normally processed. It should be noted that an assignment does not act as a revocation of power of attorney for authorization previously given. However, the assignee may revoke a previous power of attorney.
2570 Maintenance Fee Payment Status Requests
MPEP SECTION SUMMARY
The Maintenance Fee Branch will respond to requests for the maintenance fee payment status of patents. Maintenance fee status can be requested by telephone. Telephone status requests are limited to two patent numbers per telephone call. In addition, maintenance fee status information is available over the Internet by entering the patent number and the corresponding application number
2575 Notices
MPEP SECTION SUMMARY
The Office has no duty to notify patentees when their maintenance fees are due. However, they try to send out a reminder notice during the grace period. Notices provided by the Office should merely be thought of as a courteous reminder attempt, the Office is not required to send anything at all.
It is always the patentee’s responsibility to pay the maintenance fee on time, the failure to receive the reminder notice will never shift the burden to the Office. A notice will appear in the Official Gazette indicating which patents are up for maintenance fees.
