U.S. court rejects Patent Office's new regulations

WASHINGTON, April 1 (Reuters) - A U.S. court on Tuesday threw out controversial U.S. Patent and Trademark Office regulations that limited the size of applications for new patents, a spokeswoman for the office said.

The ruling was a victory for GlaxoSmithKline (GSK.L: Quote, Profile, Research), which had challenged the patent agency's new rules, designed to force inventors to craft more focused applications and reduce follow-up submissions that resulted in protracted examinations and huge and growing backlogs.

The rules had been scheduled to go into effect on Nov. 1, 2007, but a federal judge issued a temporary injunction halting them because of Glaxo's lawsuit. (Reporting by Diane Bartz; editing by John Wallace)