Tech support failure at the Assignment Branch

This past Monday, February 5, 2024, was the big day that the USPTO launched its Assignment Center.

The USPTO failed to do any customer-side alpha or beta testing prior to launch day, despite having been invited to do so on November 12, 2023 (blog article).

When the USPTO belatedly revealed some of its training materials on January 29, 2024 (blog article), I predicted (see it here) that it would turn out that USPTO’s software developers had failed to handle correctly any PCT application that had been filed in a Receiving Office other than RO/US.

Sure enough, when the USPTO launched its Assignment Center on February 5, my prediction was fulfilled.  It was impossible to record an assignment against any PCT application that had been filed in a Receiving Office other than RO/US.

The Assignment Branch lists two ways to get tech support for bugs in Ass. Center.  A first way to get tech support is to send an email to assignmentcenter@uspto.gov .  I did that on Monday, February 5.  Four days have passed and nobody at the USPTO has answered that email.  Nor, during those four days, did anybody at the USPTO fix the bug reported in that email.

A second way to get tech support is to place a telephone call to the Assignment Branch at +1-571-272-3350.  I did that bright and early on Tuesday, February 6 (blog article).  I waited on hold for some twenty minutes, eventually reaching a human being who claimed to be wholly unable to provide tech support, but who offered to “open a ticket”.  So I received ticket number 1-849780117.  Three days have passed and nobody at the USPTO has gotten back to me on that ticket.  Nor, during those three days, did anybody at the USPTO fix the bug reported in that ticket.

Bright and early on Tuesday, February 6, I left a voice mail message for the manager of the Assignment Branch, a Joyce R. Johnson.  I left a detailed voicemail message.  Three days have passed and she has not returned my call.  Nor, during those three days, did anybody at the USPTO fix the bug reported in that voicemail message to the manager.

 

Webinar: Two-factor authentication for those who use ISA/EP

Do you use ISA/EP?  Do you use an EPO mailbox to receive ISR/WOs from ISA/EP?  Do you use an EPO smart card to log in at the mailbox?  Then you need to migrate from a smart card to a time-based one-time password form of two-factor authentication.  And you need to do it before the end of 2024.  One way to learn how to do this is by attending an EPO webinar that will take place soon.  Continue reading “Webinar: Two-factor authentication for those who use ISA/EP”

Let’s complete a survey for the PCT people at WIPO

Hello dear readers.  The people at WIPO who handle the PCT system are hoping to do a better job for their users, and so they have posted a questionnaire.  If you make use of ePCT, or if you use the services of RO/IB, you can share your thoughts through this questionnnaire.  Here is the invitation:

Starting in March 2023, the RO/IB has been working as a Pilot Team on enhancing our customer services.  We need again your support to ensure that we meet your expectations. We also invite you to share your ideas to help us go further.  Please complete the survey below and feel free to forward it to anyone in your PCT community.  Please click here and start the survey. It will take around 2 minutes.

Has your membership in a listserv been disabled due to “excessive bounces”?

(Updated November 25, 2023 to recognize that if your email service provider is bouncing the normal listserv postings, your email service provider may also have bounced the warning message that was sent to you about your email service provider bouncing the normal listserv postings.)

In recent days, dozens of members of our intellectual property listservs have received (or at least have been sent) email warnings that start like this:

Your membership in the mailing list <blah> has been disabled due to excessive bounces.  The last bounce received from you was dated <recent date>. You will not get any more messages from this list until you re-enable your membership. You will receive 2 more reminders like this before your membership in the list is deleted.

If you received such an email warning, this is because (a) you belong to one or more of our listservs, and (b) you selected Microsoft (outlook) to be your email service provider.   But of course another possibility is that you did not receive this warning email message, because your email service provider bounced the warning email message too.  What should you do next? Continue reading “Has your membership in a listserv been disabled due to “excessive bounces”?”

Telling twelve thousand people about four free webinars

click to enlarge

The map at right shows, in real time, our progress in letting twelve thousand people learn that they have an opportunity to attend four free-of-charge webinars about PCT forms.  As you can see, some 1600 emails have been sent (light green shading) to people in Asia and Africa and eastern and central Europe.  Just now, emails are being sent (dark green shading) to people in west Africa and parts of Greenland.  Some 11000 emails are waiting to be sent to people in North and South America.  Why did these emails not get sent all at once?  Continue reading “Telling twelve thousand people about four free webinars”

Listervs have been migrated to a new server

(Update:  Microsoft is behaving badly about this.  See blog article.)

Hello to the members of the various listservs hosted by Oppedahl Patent Law Firm LLC.   Yesterday I migrated the listservs to a new server.  For many members of the listservs, hopefully this will go largely unnoticed after a few test postings of yesterday and today.  But for some members, this will be extra work and trouble.  I am sorry about this.

Here are details.

Whitelisting.  Previously the listservs were on a server at IP address 162.255.116.157.  Now the listservs are on a server at IP address 66.29.132.148.  Maybe you had previously set up a whitelisting entry in your email system to allow messages from 162.255.116.157 to reach you.  If so, you may find that now you need to set up a whitelisting entry in your email system to allow messages from 66.29.132.148 to reach you.  (Update:  Microsoft is behaving badly about this.  See blog article.)

Member password.  This migration caused a reset of your password for your subscription to the listserv.   To get your password figured out again, you might find it necessary to go to one of the eleven links below (for the listserv that you need to reset the password in) and click on the link, and follow the process for resetting your password.

Digest numbering.  If you are a digest subscriber, you will see that this migration has reset the digest numbering to volume 1.

I am sorry about the extra work and trouble.

Links to user information pages for the listservs.  The listservs affected by this server migration include: