Carl Oppedahl's blog
One of the dumbest things that you can do when you are naming your intellectual property firm, it turns out, is picking a name that is more than 35 characters in length. If you make this mistake, it means you often can’t get paid.
A related dumb thing is arranging to have a street address that exceeds 35 characters in length. This, too, might mean that you can’t get paid.
It turns out that there is a simple and quick fix for this problem, as I will mention at the end of this blog article.
On March 13 I blogged that US filers filing documents at the International Bureau needed to pay extra close attention to what time it is in Switzerland. The reason is that in the US, Daylight Saving Time happened on March 13. But it 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 the 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 27, 2022) 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 at the 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.
This change affects for example a US-based filer filing a PCT application at the RO/IB, and it affects the US-based filer filing a design application in the IB’s Hague Agreement e-filing system. It also affects the US-based filer filing documents at the IB relating to the Madrid Protocol, such as for example a Subsequent Designation.
Most readers of my blog will appreciate that the correct terminology is not “Daylight Savings Time” but “Daylight Saving Time”.
Many readers will also appreciate that EU has been trying for the past two years to get rid of this clock-changing. There have also been largely feckless efforts in various states of the US to bring an end to this clock-changing. I personally would like it if the place where I am located, and the places where patent and trademark offices are that I care about, would all bring an end to clock-changing.
It’s that time of year again. The time of year when it is important to keep track of the fact that Daylight Saving Time is different in Switzerland from the way it is in the United States. This is important because you might be in the US, and you might be e-filing some document with the International Bureau of WIPO. For the next two weeks (until March 27), the drop-dead time for e-filing a document at the IB is an hour later than usual. Usually, to get a same-day filing date at the IB, an American filer would have to complete the e-filing by 4PM Mountain Time (which is midnight in Geneva). But for the next two weeks, you get an extra hour. You could complete the e-filing by as late as 5PM Mountain Time and it would still be a same-day filing date.
This might affect you because you are e-filing a PCT patent application at RO/IB. This might affect you because you are e-filing a Hague Agreement design application at the IB. This might affect you because you are paying a set of Madrid Protocol renewal fees at the IB. Or maybe you are filing an Article 19 amendment or a Demand at the IB.
Most readers of my blog will appreciate that the correct terminology is not “Daylight Savings Time” but “Daylight Saving Time”.
Many readers will also appreciate that EU has been trying and trying to bring this to an end. There have also been largely feckless efforts in various states of the US to bring an end to this clock-changing. I personally would like it if the place where I am located, and the places where patent and trademark offices are that I care about, would all bring an end to clock-changing.
The USPTO makes much of the importance of receiving information in computer-readable formats. For example the USPTO has proposed to charge a $400 penalty to the patent applicant who would fail to provide the body of a patent application in Microsoft Word format. Why, then, does the USPTO so consistently fail to practice what it preaches? For example when the applicant provides issue-fee information (assignee name and attorney-agent-or-firm information) in computer-readable format, the USPTO discards the provided computer-readable characters and hand-keys it, often making mistakes (keying “Radom, Poland” as “Random, Poland” or keying my name “Oppedahl” as “Oppendahl”). The most recent glaring example of this has revealed itself in USPTO’s mishandling of incoming designations from international design applications, as I will describe. (These are the applications having application numbers in the series code “35”.) Continue reading “USPTO hand-keys Hague designation data ☹”
On October 25 I blogged that US filers filing documents at the International Bureau needed to pay extra close attention to what time it is in Switzerland. The reason is that in Switzerland, Daylight Saving Time stopped happening on October 25. But did not happen on that day in the US. Continue reading “Filing at the International Bureau and Daylight Saving Time”
Here’s a fun thing to notice. These days the USPTO is picking up an extra $27 from the IB with each inbound Hague designation. Continue reading “Exchange rate gains from the International Bureau”
It’s that time of year again. The time of year when it is important to keep track of the fact that Daylight Saving Time is different in Switzerland from the way it is in the United States. This is important because you might be in the US, and you might be e-filing (or fax-filing) some document with the International Bureau of WIPO. Continue reading “Filing at the International Bureau and Daylight Saving Time”
It is recalled (see blog post “Captain May I?” in Hague Agreement applications, August 20, 2020 and open letter to the Commissioner for Patents, September 2, 2020) that in about June of 2020 the USPTO came up with the notion that there was a trap for the unwary in the use of DAS as a way to perfect a priority claim in a US designation from a Hague Agreement design application. The USPTO decided that I had supposedly stepped into this trap twice, representing a design applicant in two 35-series design patent applications.
Now the USPTO seems to have walked it back. Although the USPTO did not communicate the walk-back as clearly as one might wish, the USPTO seems to have decided that this trap for the unwary never actually existed. It means I never stepped into the trap, given that it never actually existed. Continue reading “USPTO seems to have walked back the US-designation-Hague-DAS-certified-copy problem”
I request that the Commissioner for Patents publish an Official Gazette notice along the lines of the proposed notice appearing below. Continue reading “An open letter to the Commissioner for Patents”
The childhood game of “Captain May I?” (Wikipedia article) irritated me greatly as a child. I had little patience for it. The premise of the game is that words do not mean what they seem to mean. In this game, a string of words which on its face is an instruction to take three steps forward does not actually count as an instruction to take three steps forward unless it is followed up by the query “Captain May I?” which is in turn followed by an automatic grant of permission by the “captain”. The conceit of the game is that any and all requests to the captain for such permission are automatically granted, so that after a few minutes of play one sort of assumes that because the requests are always granted, there should not really be a need to ask. But the “gotcha” in the game is that you must ask, even though the asking is pointless.
Today I was gobsmacked to learn that the USPTO plays “Captain May I?” with US designations of Hague Agreement applications (international design applications). If as a child you were to get tricked and forget to ask “Captain May I?” the consequences would merely be that you return to the starting line of the game. But as a design applicant if you get tricked and forget to ask “USPTO May I?” the consequence is, it seems, that you lose your priority claim. I am not making this up. Continue reading ““Captain May I?” in Hague Agreement applications”