USPTO PIER Pilot Program Alert: New Requirements for PCT National Stage Applications
Effective April 9, 2026, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) launched the PCT Informed Examination Request (PIER) Pilot Program, a one-year initiative that introduces a mandatory decision point for selected U.S. national stage applications filed under 35 U.S.C. § 371.1
Under the program, the USPTO will issue a Requirement for Information (RFI) to applicants of certain unexamined national stage applications, requiring them to affirmatively choose — before examination begins — whether to (1) proceed with examination, (2) delay examination for up to 12 months, or (3) expressly abandon the application. Selection is entirely at the USPTO’s discretion with no opt-out mechanism, and failure to respond timely results in automatic abandonment — making this a high-stakes procedural development for any company with a pending or planned § 371 national stage filing. Further details on the program’s mechanics, PTA implications, and prosecution strategy considerations are set forth below.
While the PIER program frames the three options as equivalent choices, applicants with viable patent portfolios will rarely find abandonment or the 12-month delay to be rational elections. Proceeding with examination preserves all options — including the ability to continue prosecution, file continuations, and maintain competitive blocking positions — while forfeiting none. The 12-month delay makes sense in a narrow set of scenarios: an applicant expecting a near-term clinical trial readout or commercial decision that will definitively answer whether the application is worth pursuing, or — in the wireless communications and IoT space — an applicant monitoring an active standards body process (e.g., 3GPP, IEEE) where adoption of the disclosed technology into a standard could make the application a candidate for standard-essential patent (SEP) designation. Outside those circumstances, the PTA cost of delay will almost always exceed any benefit.
As a practical matter, the program is unlikely to meaningfully reduce examination backlog for applicants actively working their portfolios — it largely adds an administrative layer that shifts the timing of a required response rather than reducing the overall volume of applications entering examination. The program’s most significant culling effect will fall on foreign applicants and smaller entities who have allowed prosecution counsel relationships to lapse, failed to maintain an active Power of Attorney, or simply lost track of a national stage filing — for whom a missed RFI results in silent, automatic abandonment with no path to revival.
Background — What the PIER Pilot Program Does
The PIER Pilot Program is designed to assess the inventory and efficiency impacts of requiring applicants to request examination in view of applicable PCT international phase work products — a response to the USPTO’s record backlog of approximately 1.25 million pending applications and average first Office action pendency exceeding 27 months for § 371 national stage applications.2 The program is grounded in 37 CFR § 1.105 and leverages international-phase work products (the International Search Report (ISR), Written Opinion (WO/ISA), and International Preliminary Report on Patentability (IPRP)) to push earlier commercial and prosecution-readiness assessments onto applicants.
The USPTO will select certain unexamined national stage applications intermittently until the close of the program on April 9, 2027 (subject to earlier termination or extension at the USPTO’s sole discretion).3 Only applications that have entered the national stage under 35 U.S.C. § 371 and have completed pre-examination processing are eligible for selection. Applications filed under 35 U.S.C. § 111(a) — including plant, design, and reissue applications — will not be selected.
For selected applications, the USPTO will issue an RFI under 37 CFR § 1.105 requiring the applicant to elect one of three options using Form PTO/SB/478 filed via Patent Center:
Proceed with examination (with the option to file a preliminary amendment to place the application in better condition for examination);
Delay examination for 12 months from the date of receipt of the delay request — irrevocable once approved by the USPTO, with no termination available during the delay period; or
Expressly abandon the application in accordance with 37 CFR § 1.138.
The RFI sets a two-month period for reply, extendable to a maximum of six months under 37 CFR § 1.136(a).4 The RFI constitutes an Office action under 35 U.S.C. § 132 — though not a first action on the merits — with two significant consequences: it starts the USPTO’s clock for A-delay PTA purposes under 35 U.S.C. § 154(b)(1)(A)(i), and it forecloses the applicant’s ability to obtain a refund of the search fee and excess claims fees upon abandonment under 37 CFR § 1.138(d). Failure to file a timely, complete, and properly signed Form PTO/SB/478 will result in automatic abandonment of the application.5
Patent Term Adjustment (PTA) Implications
The PIER program creates two distinct patent term adjustment consequences that applicants should carefully evaluate before electing the 12-month delay option. First, the mailing of the RFI will be treated as the date the USPTO satisfied its first-action obligation under 35 U.S.C. § 154(b)(1)(A)(i) and 37 CFR § 1.702(a)(1) (Office Delay — A-delay).6 This means the USPTO’s 14-month A-delay clock stops when the RFI is mailed, potentially reducing A-delay PTA that might otherwise have accrued if examination had proceeded directly to a substantive first Office action.
Second, and more significantly, if the applicant elects the 12-month delay option, the USPTO will treat that period as a failure to engage in “reasonable efforts to conclude prosecution” under 35 U.S.C. § 154(b)(2)(C)(i), (iii) and 37 CFR § 1.704(c) (Applicant Delay).7 As a result, the entire 12-month deferral is charged as applicant delay and deducted from any PTA earned on the application — a consequence that can translate into hundreds of millions of dollars of lost exclusivity for high-value pharmaceutical or biotech assets, where a single day of patent protection on a blockbuster product can be worth millions of dollars in revenue. For applicants in those sectors, electing the 12-month delay without a clear commercial rationale carries financial consequences that dwarf the cost of simply proceeding with examination.
Strategy Considerations for Patent Prosecutors
The PIER Pilot Program requires immediate attention to several prosecution management issues:
Docket monitoring: The USPTO will issue RFIs without advance notice. All pending § 371 national stage applications that have completed pre-examination processing should be flagged immediately as potential PIER targets. A missed RFI will result in abandonment with no revival under 37 CFR § 1.137 (deliberate abandonment cannot be considered unintentional).
Power of Attorney: Confirm that a Power of Attorney is on file for all § 371 national stage applications. Without POA, counsel cannot timely respond to the RFI within the two-month response window.
Commercial readiness assessment: Applicants should establish a standing go/no-go framework before receiving an RFI. The ISR, WO/ISA, and IPRP are already in the national stage file — these international-phase work products provide a meaningful early signal as to patentability that can inform an early prosecution decision.
Preliminary amendment opportunity: If proceeding with examination, consider whether a preliminary amendment to address ISR-cited prior art can put the application in better condition before the examiner picks it up.
IDS timing: References cited in the PCT international phase will only be printed on a resulting patent if the applicant separately cites them on an IDS in compliance with 37 CFR §§ 1.97 and 1.98. File the initial IDS at least one month before the first action on the merits to avoid an additional applicant delay PTA charge.
Abandonment signature requirement: When the express abandonment checkbox is selected on Form PTO/SB/478, the form must be signed by the applicant directly under 37 CFR § 1.33(b)(1) or (b)(3) — not by the registered practitioner acting in a representative capacity — unless the abandonment is made in connection with filing a continuing application. This procedural requirement can create timing complications and must be anticipated before the deadline arrives.
Pre-publication abandonment: If the client’s goal is to avoid publication, a petition under 37 CFR § 1.138(c) must be recognized by the appropriate USPTO personnel more than four weeks prior to the projected publication date. This petition must be submitted as a separate request accompanying Form PTO/SB/478.
Bypass Continuations Under § 111(a): A Strategic Alternative
Applications filed under 35 U.S.C. § 111(a) are categorically excluded from the PIER Pilot Program.8 This exclusion makes bypass continuations — U.S. applications filed under § 111(a) that claim priority to a PCT application as a continuation, divisional, or continuation-in-part — an increasingly attractive strategic alternative to direct § 371 national stage entry, particularly for high-value applications where PIER exposure or PTA erosion is a concern.
Prosecution Strategy Advantages. Bypass applications offer several structural prosecution advantages over § 371 national stage applications. Track One Prioritized Examination is available for bypass applications but is not available for § 371 applications — enabling a final disposition within approximately 6 to 12 months for applicants who elect that pathway.9 Restriction practice under bypass uses the U.S. standard of distinct inventions, which is generally narrower than the PCT unity of invention standard, potentially reducing the number of restriction requirements in certain technology areas. Bypass continuation-in-part applications can introduce new matter that would not be permissible in a § 371 application. Additionally, preliminary amendments are more flexibly timed in bypass applications and may be filed at any time before examination begins.
Filing Fee Comparison. From a cost perspective, the two paths are comparable at entry but diverge significantly depending on prosecutorial choices made thereafter. The basic national stage fee for a § 371 application is currently $320 for large entities (reduced to $160 if the USPTO served as the International Searching Authority or International Preliminary Examining Authority).10 Bypass applications incur standard U.S. utility filing fees (a $320 basic filing fee for large entities), with no equivalent ISA/IPEA discount available. If Track One prioritized examination is elected for a bypass application, an additional surcharge of $4,000 (large entity) applies.11 Importantly, the USPTO’s 2025 fee rule introduced a continuing application age fee: bypass continuations filed six or more years after the earliest claimed benefit date now incur a surcharge of $2,700 (large entity), rising to $4,000 for applications filed nine or more years after the earliest benefit date.12 For PCT applications with older priority dates, this age-based surcharge can materially affect the cost-benefit calculus.
When § 371 National Stage Remains Preferable. Despite the PIER risk, direct § 371 entry retains meaningful advantages in several scenarios. The ISA/IPEA search fee discount reduces upfront costs for applicants whose PCT application was searched by the USPTO. For straightforward prosecution with no Track One need and no new matter, § 371 entry is procedurally simpler: priority documents are automatically transmitted from the PCT Bureau, whereas bypass applications require submission of certified copies or Digital Access Service (DAS) authorization codes. Applicants should evaluate both paths in light of commercial timeline, the age of the PCT priority date, and the importance of patent term to the ultimate commercial value of the invention.
Conclusion and Next Steps
The PIER Pilot Program represents a meaningful shift in USPTO practice for § 371 national stage filers — one that rewards preparedness and penalizes inattention. Clients with pending national stage applications should contact counsel promptly to assess their PIER exposure and establish a go/no-go framework based on international-phase work products already in their application files. Clients planning future PCT national stage entries should discuss bypass continuation strategy with counsel before filing, particularly where patent term, Track One eligibility, or PIER avoidance is a priority. Whether the pilot program becomes permanent will depend on the USPTO’s evaluation of inventory and efficiency outcomes over the next year, but the underlying policy direction — front-loading examination decisions — signals a durable change in the national stage practice landscape.
For questions regarding how the USPTO’s PIER Pilot Program may affect your pending applications or prosecution strategy, please contact partner Sid Kapoor, Intellectual Property Department, at sid.kapoor@pierferd.com.
This publication and/or any linked publications herein do not constitute legal, accounting, or other professional advice or opinions on specific facts or matters and, accordingly, the author(s) and PierFerd assume no liability whatsoever in connection with its use. Pursuant to applicable rules of professional conduct, this publication may constitute Attorney Advertising. © 2026 Pierson Ferdinand LLP.
1 PCT Informed Examination Request (PIER) Pilot Program, 91 Fed. Reg. 17,950 (Apr. 9, 2026) (Docket No. PTO-P-2026-0199) (available at: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2026-04-09/pdf/2026-06903.pdf).
2 PIER Notice at 17,950 (noting program’s purpose of reducing inventory and pendency); see also USPTO Patent Term Adjustment Data (Feb. 2026), available at https://www.uspto.gov/dashboard/patents/patent-term-adjustment-new.html; Crouch, PTA Keeps Score, Patently-O (Mar. 9, 2026), available at https://patentlyo.com/patent/2026/03/pta-keeps-score-patent-term-adjustment-as-a-measure-of-the-uspto-backlog.html (approximately 1,249,845 pending applications; ~27.9 months total pendency).
3 PIER Notice at 17,950 (DATES section).
4 Id. at 17,951 (Part III); see also MPEP § 704.13.
5 Id.; see also MPEP § 711.02.
6 PIER Notice at 17,951 (Part III); 35 U.S.C. § 154(b)(1)(A)(i); 37 CFR § 1.702(a)(1).
7 PIER Notice at 17,951 (Part III); 35 U.S.C. § 154(b)(2)(C)(i), (iii); 37 CFR § 1.704(c).
8 PIER Notice at 17,950 (Part I).
9 See 37 CFR § 1.102(e); USPTO Track One information available at www.uspto.gov/patent/initiatives/usptos-prioritized-patent-examination-program.
10 USPTO Fee Schedule (effective Jan. 19, 2025); 37 CFR § 1.492(a).
11 37 CFR § 1.102(e)(1); see also USPTO Fee Schedule, Track One surcharge (Code 1504, large entity).
12 Setting and Adjusting Patent Fees During Fiscal Year 2025, 89 Fed. Reg. 91,898 (Nov. 20, 2024); 37 CFR § 1.17(q).
