Defending Scholarly Authorship in RFE Responses

By Amy Fredrickson

With the increase in RFE and NOID responses to extraordinary ability petitions, Park and our clients are more frequently encountering pushback to the “authorship of scholarly articles” criterion, such as:

• The evidence submitted does not qualify as “scholarly”;

• Using comparable evidence for this criterion is inappropriate in the context of the field.

Park’s experts are helping clients navigate responses to these arguments from USCIS. Our professors leverage their understanding of the unique dynamics within their fields to explain why the evidence submitted can be categorized as scholarly and/or why it is appropriate to use comparable evidence for this criterion.

For example, in a recent case written by one of Park’s business experts, we helped a client respond to an RFE argument that stated using comparable evidence for the authorship criterion was not appropriate in the context of Marketing and Business Analytics. To respond, our expert outlined the unique attributes of business and marketing disciplines and established that presenting at industry events is an acceptable and necessary application of comparable evidence for scholarly authorship.

In another recent case, one of Park’s computer science experts drafted an argument supporting a “hybrid” approach to the authorship criterion. In his letter, our expert expanded the definition of scholarly authorship in the context of Artificial Intelligence Engineering to encompass both traditional peer-reviewed publications and comparable evidence, such as industry whitepapers and technical articles. The expert drew on his extensive experience in computer science to draft this argument, offering a comprehensive response to an RFE that questioned whether the use of industry whitepapers and technical articles for the authorship criterion was acceptable within the Artificial Intelligence Engineering field.

Park’s experts are equipped with in-depth understandings of their fields that enables them to effectively respond to common arguments from USCIS regarding the “authorship of scholarly articles” criterion. If you receive an RFE or NOID targeting this criterion, reach out to [email protected] for help!