[Note from Carl Oppedahl: I received this text from a reader who suggested that I post it as a guest blog article. It is posted anonymously, for reasons that will become clear. Maybe you find it as interesting to read as I did!]
This is a long e-mail, but I hope that you will read it. I want to thank you for the blog that you posted last Saturday, because it saved me from a major malpractice exposure. Continue reading
The European Patent Office (EPO) will sponsor three seminars for US‑based patent practitioners, paralegals and their administrative staff. Continue reading
The fee to be paid by a US PCT filer for a search carried out by IP Australia dropped today, from $1722 to $1631.
I mentioned this in a previous blog post.
You will not need to worry about accidentally paying an incorrect fee amount, because the e-filing systems have already been updated to reflect the new fee amount. For filers in RO/US, the EFS-Web system has already been updated. And for filers in RO/IB, the ePCT system has already been updated.
click to enlarge
Starting from December 25, a trademark owner in Malawi can file a Madrid Protocol application to pursue protection in one or more Offices outside of Malawi. And starting from that date, a trademark owner outside of Malawi can file a Subsequent Designation to Malawi (or can file a new Madrid Protocol application designating Malawi).
It is recalled that the Patent Cooperation Treaty entered into force on January 24, 1978, initially with 18 contracting states. But perhaps not all readers appreciate that Malawi was one of those initial 18 contracting states for the PCT! Saying this differently, Malawi was more trendy, modern, and up-to-date about the PCT than most of the 152 present-day members of the PCT. Nobody joined PCT sooner than Malawi!
The two-letter code for Malawi is “MW”.
When you file a PCT application in a Receiving Office other than the RO/IB, the Receiving Office will consider whether it is “competent” to handle that particular PCT application. If the RO determines that it is non-competent, it will transfer the application to the RO/IB for further processing. (The application does not lose its filing date; the RO/IB will honor the filing date that had been given to the application by the first RO.)
Each RO determines its own conditions for “competency”. In the case of RO/US, the two ways that the RO might decide that it lacks competency as to a particular PCT application are:
Either of these situations will prompt RO/US to transfer a particular PCT application to the RO/IB.
But what, the long-suffering blog reader may ask at this point, does all of this have to do with “lorem ipsum“? Yes, those are today’s fun questions — the interesting question “what is lorem ipsum?” and the even more interesting question “what does lorem ipsum have to do with Receiving Office procedure under the Patent Cooperation Treaty?” Continue reading
On October 1, 2018, the search fee for ISA/AU for filers in the RO/US will drop from $1722 to $1631.
If you were already planning to select IP Australia as your international searching authority, and if you are able to postpone your filing until October 1, you have an opportunity to save $91.
One month remains, folks, to sign up for my PCT seminar that will take place in Silicon Valley, California, on October 16-18, 2018.
This will be a unique learning opportunity for practitioners and paralegals alike who wish to learn about the Patent Cooperation Treaty, or who wish to refresh their knowledge of the PCT, or who wish to learn how to use ePCT, or who wish to bring themselves up to date about PCT developments. Continue reading
As of September 7, 2018, Uganda is now a 30-month country. Said differently, the time limit for DO/UG is now 30 months. Continue reading
click to enlarge
Recently I mailed post cards to nearly all of the people in Silicon Valley who are admitted to practice before the USPTO. This was about 4000 post cards.
By now, about 400 of these post cards have been returned to sender as undeliverable. Ten percent!
For each of these mailing addresses, it means the practitioner’s address with the Office of Enrollment and Discipline is undeliverable. As I flip quickly through this stack of several hundred returned cards, I see names of very well known law firms and very well known high-tech companies.
So the point of this post is that if you did not receive one of these post cards, you might want to look in the the OED database to see if your mailing address with the OED is out of date.
If you are located outside of Silicon Valley and you know someone who is a registered practitioner in Silicon Valley, you might want to ask them if they did not receive the post card, in which case they might want to look in the OED database to see if they need to update their address.
I’ve started a podcast series about the Patent Cooperation Treaty. Thus far I have recorded three episodes. I’m guessing it will take about forty episodes to cover all of the things that I want to cover. I’m making these podcasts available free of charge. To make this work I have set up a podcast server which you can see here. Continue reading