click to go to TransferWise web site
I have a prediction to make. My prediction is that within a year or two, every patent and trademark firm around the world that has a substantial international practice will have a TransferWise account. What prompts me to predict this? Continue reading
Yes, today is the day that the IB has become a Depositing Office for Designs.
You can read all about it here.
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About 178 cities around the world, in 56 countries, have subway systems. Dozens of airports also have underground train systems connecting concourses and terminals. Go to any of these cities, any of these airports, and ride the subway, and if you pay close attention you will notice that if two stations are at about the same elevation, there will almost always be a contour like what you see in the figure. The train departs from station A and goes down a short decline. Then the track might be completely level for some distance along the path from one station to the next. Then shortly before arriving at station B, the track goes up a short incline and comes to rest in station B.
Why is there always a decline at A and an incline at B? Why does the track dip down and come back up? Continue reading
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What follows is a rather long and rambling story ending with an explanation as to why this plaque, which looks big in the photograph but is actually not very big, hangs on the wall of my office. Continue reading
When the time comes to pay an Issue Fee, one item on your checklist is to look in the Display References tab in PAIR to see if there are any not-yet-considered IDSs, right?
The USPTO itself has a similar workflow task when an Issue Fee gets paid — some clerk at the USPTO looks to see if there are any not-yet-considered IDSs and bounces the case back to the Examiner if there are any found in this workflow. Does that clerk rely upon the Display References tab in PAIR to look for not-yet-considered IDSs? Maybe the answer is “yes”.
When a patent Examiner at the USPTO picks up a case to examine it, the Examiner is supposed to consider the IDSs that have been filed. Does the Examiner rely upon the Display References tab in PAIR to look for not-yet-considered IDSs? Maybe the answer is “yes”.
I was astonished recently to learn that there is a category of IDS that the USPTO fails to include in the Display References tab. This defect in PAIR (and there is a corresponding defect in the Display References tab in Patentcenter) requires urgent repair by the USPTO. Between now and whenever (or if) the USPTO gets around to repairing this defect, the situation represents a trap for the unwary practitioner.
Do you, loyal reader, already know what category of IDS I am talking about here?
Continue reading
It will be recalled (blog article, January 1) that I reported that on January 1, 2020 the Japanese Patent Office became a Depositing Office in DAS for designs.
It’s all fine and good to hear this report, but is there a way that a practitioner could independently confirm that that it really did happen? Is there a way that a practitioner could independently confirm that the JPO did indeed become a Depositing Office in DAS for designs?
The answer is that yes the practitioner can independently confirm this, as I will explain. Continue reading
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A year or so ago we migrated quite a few of our firm’s server functions, including this blog, and our firm’s main web site and our firm’s shopping cart, to a shared server in this large building (company web site) in Phoenix, Arizona (aerial photo at right). I’ve never been in that building and my best guess is I won’t ever be in that building. The shared server was on an equipment rack in a cage controlled by our hosting service provider. The building provides multiple connections to the Internet and diesel-powered backup power supplies. In the photograph you can see the diesel fuel storage tanks.
Shared servers are really good to know about. A shared server can provide a very inexpensive way to host many functions in a secure and reliable environment.
On a shared server, you are sharing processor and hard-drive and network-connection bandwidth resources with others on the same server. This means that if you were to use too much of the resources, your hosting service provider would suggest you move to a dedicated server. This also means that if some other user or users on the same server were to use a lot of resources at a particular time, your functions would get slowed down. If for example you were hosting a web site on the server, the web site might run slower for visitors to the web site, because of the activities of other users on the shared server. Another thing to keep in mind is that not all hosting service providers are created equal. Some providers will load too many users on a shared server, and the result will be that it runs slowly for everyone.
Back when we used a shared server at Godaddy, it often ran slowly. I imagine this is because Godaddy put lots of users onto each server. It is part of why we migrated to our present hosting service provider. During the time that we used a shared server with our present hosting service provider, it happened only very rarely that the shared server would run slowly for us.
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A couple of months ago we migrated most of the functions that were on that shared server to a dedicated server. The dedicated server costs more per month, but of course there are benefits to its being a dedicated server. The server is very fast. It never slows down because of other users, because there are no other users. And you have “root access” meaning that you can do really neat things. One of the neat things that I was able to do is to set up Let’s Encrypt (blog article) in the AutoSSL of the cPanel (Wikipedia article) in this machine. The consequence of this is that we won’t ever again have to pay money for an SSL certificate for any web site on this server.
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I haven’t ever actually seen our dedicated server, and I probably never will, but from its specs I can guess that it might look like the one pictured at right. It takes up one “rack unit” on an equipment rack in the same cage where the shared server was located.
The natural question that one might ask is, if we ever were to find the need to reboot our dedicated server, how would we do it? Would I need to get on an airplane, fly to Phoenix, present myself at this building, get myself admitted to the cage, figure out which server is mine, and push the “reset” button? Or would I need to contact our hosting service provider and beg and plead for them to send someone to the cage to do this?
Surely not.
So should the need arise, how would we reboot it? Continue reading
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When a notebook computer stops working, the usual next steps are:
For must of us, the emotional cost of the second step, and the lost-professional-billing cost of the second step, far exceed the amount of money involved in the first step.
Yesterday I had to retire an old notebook computer and move to a new one. But for me, the second step was only about ten minutes. Not the usual two lost weekends. How did this delightful result happen? Continue reading
Readers will recall my postings here and here and here about the Trademark Office’s recent Examination Guideline requiring trademark applicants to reveal to the public where they sleep at night.
Within recent weeks (see my blog post of December 29, 2019) I have filed petitions in some of my cases asking that the applicant be permitted to withhold this information from the public for reasons of personal privacy and safety.
I was dismayed to hear in the e-Trademarks listserv from a practitioner who reports that he filed such a petition on September 13, 2019 in one of his cases, and he recently telephoned the Office of Trademark Petitions to ask the status of his petition. He says he was told that there are many such petitions, and they are all “on hold”, and that we should not expect decisions on such petitions any time soon.
Have you had to deal with this? Have you filed such a petition? Was it granted? Please post a comment below.
Yes, dear reader, just like you I am delighted to see that this very exciting event will occur on January 15, 2020. And, dear reader, I can tell you that this blog posting is a scoop! You read it here first.
Yeah right. Okay folks — how many of our readers are already so familiar with the Hague Agreement system and with the DAS system that they instantly understand what this subject line means? Perhaps more importantly, how many of our readers can instantly devise an example of a fact pattern for a filer in which it somehow it will be helpful or make a difference that this event will have occurred on January 15, 2020? If you indeed already understand this one, good for you and you have my permission to skip reading the rest of this blog article. If you indeed already can describe some situation where the imminent membership of the IB in the club of Depositing-Office members of DAS for purposes of designs would be helpful to the filer, then you are indeed very trendy, modern and up-to-date and and you have my permission to skip reading the rest of this blog article.
For the rest of our readers, well, maybe you have a bit of work to do now, joining me in a discussion of why it is that we care that very soon, the IB will become a Depositing Office in DAS for the purposes of designs. Continue reading