The MPEP that I referenced in my message to SGE indicates that after 6 weeks the PALM monitoring system should be alerting someone that an office action is required by the examiner. However, when I spoke to a supervisor a few weeks ago, she had indicated that the MPEP was written a long time ago and those referenced deadlines are not valid any longer. She referred me to the stats below which indicate that the average months to a first office action is 7.6. Hopefully we won’t be waiting that long.

Reexaminations - FY 2010

Pending Reexaminations Quarter 1 Quarter 2 Quarter 3 Quarter 4

Preprocessing 87

Awaiting Order/Denial 96

Between Order and First Action on the Merits 343

Between FAOM and NIRC 1345

Between NIRC and Publication of Certificate 162

Total 2033

Average Months to Ex Parte FAOM 7.6

http://uspto.gov/patents/stats/Reexam_Operations_December_09.pdf