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Dealing with fragile USB C “power delivery” charging ports

redundant USB C "power delivery" charging ports
click to enlarge

Most readers of my blog will recall my blog article dated March 2, 2020 entitled Charging port redundancy.  The article talked about how nice it is if a maker of a notebook computer would set it up so that you could use any of a wide range of charging adapters, made by a wide range of manufacturers.  You would not be stuck having to purchase multiples of some proprietary-plug adapter to match a proprietary connector on a notebook computer.

That’s the good news.  The bad news is that the USB-C “power delivery” port on a notebook computer is fragile.  It wears out.  The miniscule connector pins in the USB-C port are only just barely up to the task of carrying the five or six amperes of charging current.  Every time the charging plug gets bumped or jiggled, there is a bit of flex imposed upon the fragile surface-mount solder connections for the port.  This blog article describes a way to try to deal with this fragility.   Continue reading “Dealing with fragile USB C “power delivery” charging ports”

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Unacceptable USPTO delays in forwarding responses to Examiners

We have a case in Technology Center 2100 in which we responded to a non-final Office Action on September 15, 2025.

Normally such a response would have gotten forwarded to the Examiner (by the LIE) within two or three business days.

In this case it got forwarded to the Examiner on January 16, 2026.  Yes, it took more than four months for the LIE to do the one or two mouse clicks required to place the response onto the desk of the Examiner.

Four months.  Not acceptable.  Continue reading “Unacceptable USPTO delays in forwarding responses to Examiners”

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Informed delivery now available for more business mailing addresses

One of the places where our firm receives mail is a post office box.  As recently as a couple of years ago, the USPS did not permit our firm to sign up for informed delivery with respect to our post office box.

But something has changed at the USPS.  At some unknown time in the past few months, the USPS has changed policy on this.  We have successfully signed up for informed delivery for our P O Box.

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Yet another round of sanctions for using AI-hallucinated case citations

Here is a sanctions order in a patent litigation case in federal district court in Kansas.  Several lawyers permitted their names to appear in a signature block of a brief.  The brief contained a citation to a non-existent case.  The brief cited multiple cases for saying things that they did not say.  How did the judge choose the magnitude of sanction to be imposed on each of the lawyers?  Continue reading “Yet another round of sanctions for using AI-hallucinated case citations”

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Rare Planetary Alignment on February 28, 2026

Hello dear readers.  On and around February 28, there will be opportunities to see several planets in the sky.   This will be shortly after sunset.

The planets that will be easy to see are Venus, Jupiter and Saturn.  The eagle-eyed watcher might get a glimpse of Mercury.  Only with binoculars might one also spy Uranus and Neptune.

My favorite smart phone app for locating such celestial objects is Stellarium.  Learn more at Starwalk.

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It’s time to get in your numbers for the 2025 toteboards

Hello readers.  It is now 2026 and this means it is time to get in your numbers for the 2025 toteboards:

The goal is to recognize and rank law firms in the US based upon the numbers of US design patents, US utility patents, US plant patents, and US trademark registrations each firm obtained for clients in 2025.

The questionnaires will close on Friday, February 13, 2026.

Here is a page suggesting how you might obtain these numbers.

Every year after I post the results of the toteboards, I get sad emails from firms that want me to accept their numbers late.  This would, of course, typically result in kicking other firms down in the rankings — other firms that got their numbers in on time.  Please help to reduce the number of such sad emails that I will receive this year.  Maybe you are a person at your firm who is responsible for getting these numbers in.  If so, please get your numbers in!  Otherwise, please forward this blog posting to somebody at your firm to make sure that somebody at your firm gets the numbers in for your firm.

You can see the previous toteboards here, going back to the earliest toteboard in 2012.

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Over 3000 trademark registrations likely soon to be stricken from the Register

The USPTO has issued a show-cause order dated January 27, 2026 which you can see here.  The order has an Exhibit A listing 3361 trademark applications.  The order sets a thirty-day period (ending on February 26, 2026) in which an applicant in any one of the applications will be permitted to attempt to show cause why the application ought not to be brought to an end.  (Most of the listed applications have a status of “registered”, in which case the action taken by the USPTO will be to strike the registration from the Register.)

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Barnes & Noble cheats Nook customers

map on page 979 of Churchill biography
click to enlarge

For years I have hoped that Barnes & Noble would, through its Nook service, serve as a competent ebook competitor to Amazon’s Kindle service.  My recent experience with Nook is a complete disappointment, as it is clear that Barnes & Noble cheats its Nook customers.  If you purchase a book from Barnes & Noble that has maps in it, and if you purchase the book on paper, the maps will be legible.  If you purchase that same book from Barnes & Noble as an ebook (through its Nook service), the maps will be illegible. See an example of this at right.

It is clear that Barnes & Noble’s process for converting a physical book to its Nook (ebook) format is defective.   Barnes & Noble says that it offers over 4.5 million ebooks.  I suspect that most of not all of its ebooks with maps inside are defective.  What needs to happen is that Barnes & Noble needs to redo the conversions of those books so that the maps are legible in the ebook format. Only then will customers be receiving what they paid for, namely legible maps. Continue reading “Barnes & Noble cheats Nook customers”