All USPTO systems are broken

(Updated to include link to USPTO’s 411 page.)

It seems that all USPTO systems are broken.

Members of the EFS-Web listserv, the Patentcenter listserv, and the e-Trademarks listserv (each of which you should join if you have not done so already) are reporting that all USPTO systems are broken just now.  

Here is the link to USPTO’s 411 page:  https://www.uspto.gov/blog/system411/ .  Right now it says:

USPTO is experiencing an enterprise wide issue. Users are reporting being unable to connect to the USPTO network and receiving the error “revocation status of the smartcard could not be determined”. Support groups are troubleshooting this situation, but other impacts include share drive mapping issues, SharePoint access issues, and other applications may have impacts as a result of this situation. Users are advised not to contact the Service Desk at this time. Due to the High Call Volume that the OCIO Service Desk is experiencing, there are reports of some users receiving busy signals when calling.

 

Current status of “tell us where you sleep at night?”

On July 2, 2019, the Trademark Office at the USPTO published a Final Rule stating that as of August 3, 2019, a trademark applicant would be required to reveal where he or she sleeps at night.  I found this shocking at the time, and even now after the passage of almost a year, my sense of shock has not subsided.

What is this current status of this “tell us where you sleep at night?” requirement?  Where did it come from exactly?  To what extent can an applicant somehow protect his or her privacy and hold back from having to reveal where he or she sleeps at night? 

In this much-too-long blog article I do the best I can to answer these questions.  Continue reading →

Still concerned about DOCX?

A colleague today noted that by now more than a month has passed since the last time I griped about USPTO’s DOCX activities in this blog.  He wondered if perhaps my silence was an indication that I feel the USPTO people have somehow addressed my concerns about the DOCX situation.

Just so that there is no risk of any misunderstanding about this, no, it is not the case that anything that anyone at the USPTO has done has alleviated in any way my concerns about USPTO’s DOCX plans. Continue reading →

USPTO clears two Patentcenter trouble tickets

Quite by accident today I stumbled upon the good news that USPTO fixed two bugs in Patentcenter, permitting us to clear two Patentcenter trouble tickets today.  The cleared trouble tickets are:

  • CP1 — Web-based Form 85B loses initial capitalization for assignee city name (see article)
  • CP8 – Reel number displayed wrong (see article) 

The trouble ticket page has been updated accordingly.  This leaves twenty-one outstanding trouble tickets.

Of course what we can hope for is that eventually the Patentcenter developers will establish an outbound communications channel with the beta testing community, and will let us know when they fix a bug or add a requested feature.  Until then, it will be a matter of our stumbling upon the fact of a bug having been fixed or a desirable feature having been added.

 

Spurious “user is not enrolled” error in Patentcenter

click to enlarge

Patentcenter incorrectly lists every user as “not enrolled”.  Patentcenter incorrectly says that every user “cannot access customer number in Patent Center and PAIR.”

To see this, log in at Patentcenter, click on “Manage”, click on “Manage customer numbers”.  Then click on any customer number in your list.  You will see that every user is flagged as being “not enrolled”.

This is bug report CP33.