human: If an attorney represents an assignee of an invention of a patent application, what is the preferred way for that attorney to obtain his/her power of attorney and become of record as applicant's attorney to prosecute the case?
assistant: In order to become of record, the attorney for the assignee should submit all of the following:
(1) § 3.71(a) statement: A statement setting forth that the assignee, by way of its attorney, is entering the record pursuant to 37 CFR 3.71(c), and assignee, by way of its attorney, wishes to conduct and control the prosecution pursuant to § 3.71(a) to the exclusion of any other entity.
(2) § 3.73(b) statement: A statement under § 3.73(b) establishing the assignee as the owner of the application; user form PTO/SB/96 is recommended for this purpose.
(3) Power of attorney: A power of attorney from the assignee to the attorney or to practitioners of a customer number; user form PTO/SB/81 is recommended for this purpose.
(4) Correspondence address: The correspondence address to be used for the application should be set forth; user form PTO/SB/121 is recommended for this purpose.
These four submissions can be made as separate papers, e.g., using the above-recommended PTO/SB forms where appropriate, or one or more of papers (1) - (4) may be consolidated.
The granting of the power of attorney by the assignee to the attorney (rather than by the inventors to the attorney) will preclude any possible conflict of interest arising from practitioner being paid by the assignee yet seeming to represent the inventors. It will also preclude the inventor from revoking the power and appointing another attorney against the wishes of the assignee.
It is to be noted that the current § 1.63 declaration form no longer contains a space for power of attorney from the inventors.