The New York Times calls this “The Lamp That’s Taking Over New York”. The Times calls it “a sleek newcomer” and says “the Pina Pro is appearing on droves of outdoor tables in the city — and sometimes disappearing, as diners fall for its mellow glow.” (Article dated August 11, 2022.)
Is it not protected by a design patent? Continue reading “Not protected by design patent?”
Lewis Carroll is of course well known as the pen name for Charles Dodgson. And he is of course well known for having written two Alice books.
But he was a also a mathematician and devised many clever puzzles that involved math and deductive reasoning and probability. Here is one. Continue reading “What color is the counter?”
Continue reading “What ChatGPT says about USPTO’s DOCX initiative”
I have aways sort of vaguely assumed that at some point in my youth I must have sat in a class in which the teacher made a potato battery and used it to light up a light bulb. Recently I got it into my head that it might be interesting to reconstruct that old classroom demonstration. But events of the past few days, recounted in this blog article, make me think that the old classroom demonstration must have never actually happened. I must have just read about it in books and I must have sort of assumed that you could do, in real life, anything that is described in a book. After many false starts, I did eventually manage to light up a light with a potato battery. Continue reading “quantum physics and potato batteries”
To avoid cancellation, a US trademark registration needs to be renewed every ten years. Within the USPTO it is the Post-Registration Branch that has responsibility for reviewing and accepting renewals. The backlog at the Post-Reg Branch is worse than ever, and the USPTO’s dashboard does not accurately report the magnitude of the backlog. Continue reading “Backlog in the Post-Reg Branch at the USPTO”
Two weeks ago I blogged (see blog posting) that US filers filing PCT applications in RO/IB needed to pay extra close attention to what time it is in Switzerland. (And it was the same for e-filers in the Madrid Protocol system.) The reason is that in the US, Daylight Saving Time happened on March 12. But did not happen on that day in Switzerland. This meant that for the past two weeks, a US-based filer in (for example) the Mountain Time zone would be able to e-file in RO/IB as late as 5PM and still get a same-day filing date. This differed from the usual drop-dead time of 4PM.
Today (March 26, 2023) is the day that Daylight Saving Time happens in Switzerland. The consequence of this is that the time difference between the US filer’s time zone and the time in RO/IB is back to normal. So for a US-based filer in the Mountain Time zone, the drop-dead time returns today to the usual 4PM.
In a previous blog article I discussed the front-page attorney docket number search in Patentcenter. I pointed out that in the legacy system (PAIR) it was possible to check a box to enter a partial docket number to get one or more matches. In that previous blog article I noted the conspicuous absence of a corresponding check box in Patentcenter’s front-page attorney docket number search. I am indebted to alert reader Marc V Richards for somehow figuring out that there is an undocumented feature that sort of makes up for the absence of that check box. It turns out that you can do wildcard searches. Continue reading “front-page attorney docket search in Patentcenter has an undocumented feature”
(Update: an alert reader has discovered an undocumented feature of Patentcenter that takes a step in the direction of fixing trouble ticket CP12. See blog article.)
The USPTO people are probably going to say that in the March 17, 2023 version of Patentcenter, they think they have fixed trouble ticket CP12. But they have not fixed trouble ticket CP12. Continue reading “CP12 has not been fixed”
Are you in one of these 13 countries?
If so, can you please let me know whether your DAS Depositing Office charges a fee for a DAS access code? Please see this page where I am trying to collect all of the answers that kind readers have provided.
It will be recalled that the Patentcenter listserv has secured an hour-long meeting with USPTO’s Chief Information Officer, Jamie Holcombe, on Thursday, March 23. This will run from 11AM to noon Eastern Time. I reported this to you in a blog article dated February 7, 2023. There are two developments about this. Continue reading “The upcoming meeting with USPTO about Patentcenter redux”
