By now I am astonished (in a good way) to see that more than 1300 people have registered so far for this series of fifteen webinars about the Patent Cooperation Treaty, a series that will commence on Tuesday, February 8, 2022.
My first topic for this blog article are a couple of related questions about this webinar series that came in the other day from a first loyal reader. He asked:
Is this geared more towards attorneys (i.e., strategic considerations) or paralegals (e.g., filing requirements)? If for attorneys, is it for newer attorneys not familiar with the PCT, or would someone with 25+ years of experience benefit?
A second topic for this blog article is a question that came in from a second loyal reader located outside of the US. She asked:
Will your presentations be focused on considerations that apply only to US practice and options and choices available only to US applicants? Can you let me know which portions to skip if they will not be of interest to me as a non-US filer?
Hello Folks. There are five days remaining to hand in your numbers for the 2021 Tote Boards.
Every year, after the Tote Boards get finished and published, an email message will arrive from some law firm that did not hand in its numbers on time. The law firm begs to please be included in one or another of the Tote Boards. The result of course, is that some other firm that was, say, listed in third place in one of the Tote Boards might now end up in fourth place. But that firm might already have posted on their web site that they had earned third place on a Tote Board!
The way to avoid such problems of course is simply for you to hand in your numbers before the closing date. This year, the closing date will be Wednesday, February 2, 2022. That is five days from now. Please get your numbers in by the close of business on Wednesday, February, 2022. To hand in your numbers, click here.
Two business days have passed since I announced the opening of the opportunity for firms to hand in their numbers for the 2021 Tote Boards. You can see the past tote boards here. These are the listings of law firms, ranked according to which firms obtained how many patents and trademarks registrations for their clients in the previous calendar year.
In these first two business days we have received reports from about two dozen firms.
Clearly there are quite a few firms that have not yet handed in their numbers.
As a reminder, the questionnaires will close on Wednesday, February 2, 2022. If you have not yet handed in your firm’s numbers, please do so right away. There is no good reason to foot-drag on handing in your numbers.
Hello dear readers. I am gobsmacked (in a good way) to see how many have registered for the upcoming series of fifteen webinars about the Patent Cooperation Treaty. (It will be recalled that this webinar series is sponsored by the SLW Institute. If you wish to register for the webinar series, click here.) As of right now the number who have registered is well over one thousand.
The people who have registered come from over sixty countries, and hail from every continent except Antarctica. The pie graph at right shows where some of our registrants come from. More than ¾ of the registrants are from the Americas, which is not a big surprise given that the time of day that I picked for the webinars is a time of day that probably works best for people in the Americas.
Saying this another way, an attendee from Asia or Africa or Australia or Europe will probably need to set an alarm clock or otherwise make pretty exceptional arrangements to be awake and alert and at their desk at the time of day that these webinars will take place.
I offer a bit of reassurance for those who are in Asia or Africa or Australia or Europe. You might be worried that despite your best efforts, you might snooze through one or another of the webinars. What if your alarm clock fails to sound on some particular date when you wanted it to sound? What if your regular daily responsibilities were to make it impossible to be awake on some particular day at the (admittedly very inconvenient) hour of the day of one of these webinars?
The hopefully reassuring bit of news is that our very nice organizers at the SLW Institute will be capturing recordingsof each of the webinars. We will work out some kind of routine for posting a raw video recording of each webinar soon after the webinar has taken place. And of course you will have been able to download the presentation materials. This means that if you were to snooze through, say, webinar number 3, you could pick a time to focus on printing out the presentation materials for that webinar, and for watching the recording of webinar number 3, and you could get that done in advance of the live presentation of webinar number 4. In this way you could keep up and hopefully not miss out on important material as we go along.
This is very important because the things we will be learning are cumulative. Each webinar depends on materials that we will cover in previous webinars. Another way to say that is that there will be many webinars that are prerequisites for webinars that follow.
I hope that everybody will be very diligent, carefully marking the times of each of the fifteen webinars in their personal calendars.
We have people attending who come from all of these places and more:
These Tote Boards are part of a tradition that extends back to 2012 when I published the first Design Patent Tote Board. Please send in your numbers now. We will close the entries in two weeks, that is, on Wednesday, February 2, 2022. Here are the four Tote Boards for which your numbers are needed. Continue reading “It is time to send in your numbers for the 2021 Tote Boards”
WIPO has launched a new web page called PCT Success Stories (click here). The idea is that you might have invented something and filed a PCT application on the invention, and the PCT application might later have helped the invention be a success. You could let the folks at WIPO know about it, and they could share the success story. There is for example a place on the web page where you can click and upload a photograph of your invention. Continue reading “Who has a PCT success story to share?”
Who would like to receive fifteen hours of training on the Patent Cooperation Treaty? In past years this might cost hundreds of dollars to buy a badge to attend an in-person two-day program. In past years you might have to spend money on airplane tickets and two or three nights of hotel rooms. In past years, you would have to go somewhere on an airplane and spend at least two nights in a hotel.
Guess what? The patent firm Schwegman Lundberg Woessner is doing everything to make it possible for you to attend fifteen consecutive webinars about the Patent Cooperation Treaty from the comfort of your home or office. You will not have to pay a penny to attend these webinars. The people of the Schwegman firm are making this available to you free of charge.
But these webinars are consecutive and cumulative. To make sense of webinar number 8, you need to have attended webinars 1 through 7. You need to block out time in your schedule for all fifteen webinars. They are free of charge, but you need to dedicate your time and energy to all fifteen of these webinars. To see the schedule, or to register, click here. I suggest you book these dates and times in your calendar.
You have a choice. You can pass up this unique opportunity, or you can commit to this unique opportunity.
I think you can guess where I am going with this. I suggest you follow through on this unique opportunity.
And by the way if you know anybody who is connected with the Schwegman firm, right now is the time to drop them a note and to say “thank you” to them for providing this opportunity for you.
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