Michael E. McCabe, Jr. was quoted by IPPro Patents on April 10, 2017, in an article entitled “Chinese Patent Agent Denied USPTO License” (by Barney Dixon). The IPPro Patents article discussed the implications of the Federal Circuit’s April 5 decision affirming the USPTO’s denial of the application of Jinyang Guo to become registered as a patent agent. See Guo v. Lee, No. 2017-1244 (Fed. Cir. Apr. 5, 2017). The Court held that Mr. Guo, a Chinese national and nonimmigrant alien with an electrical engineering background, was limited in the type of work he was permitted to pursue based upon the authority he had received from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which permitted him to pursue temporary employment in the area of electrical and electronics engineering–not patent law. The court reaffirmed decades of precedent that preparation and prosecution of patent applications is the practice of law, even if an engineering or science background may be necessary to provide such services.
