Waiting to hear about EBC tickets from Commissioner for Patents Udupa

One of the most striking disconnects during the October 18 meeting with Commissioner for Patents Vaishali Udupa was the topic of “what happens after a USPTO customer opens an EBC (Electronic Business Center) trouble ticket about a Patent Center bug?” 

When this topic came up during the October 18 meeting, Commissioner Udupa’s answer was that of course as a general matter what happens is that the EBC follows through on every trouble ticket that a USPTO customer opens about a Patent Center bug.  Her answer was that of course what happens is that the EBC does not simply silently close a trouble ticket relating to Patent Center, but instead, the EBC gets back to whoever it is that reported the Patent Center bug that led to opening the EBC ticket.  It was clear from this that she had never herself personally had the experience of (a) opening an EBC ticket relating to Patent Center, and (b) never hearing back from the EBC about the ticket, even after months or years of waiting to hear back from the EBC.  And it was clear that nobody she interacts with regularly about Patent Center had ever personally had the experience of (a) opening an EBC ticket relating to Patent Center, and (b) never hearing back from the EBC about the ticket, even after months or years of waiting to hear back from the EBC.

Only this could explain her absolute refusal to believe us when we told her that it has never happened, not even once, in the five-year history of Patent Center, that the EBC got back to anybody who opened an EBC trouble ticket about a Patent Center bug.  The look on her face, her words, and her body language were all showing complete disbelief.  I think she thought we were not telling the truth to her about this.

In preparation for our October 18 meeting, on October 12 we wrote to her and cited fifteen EBC tickets culled from the 100 or so outstanding CP bugs listed here.  We asked if she could please tell us the actual status of each of the fifteen listed EBC tickets — was it closed?  open?  Did she think the EBC had gotten back to the USPTO customer who reported the Patent Center bug that led to the creation of the EBC ticket?  In the days leading up to our October 18 meeting, we asked over and over again if she could please get back to us about the fifteen tickets in advance of the October 18 meeting.

Unfortunately, we did not hear back from her about the open-or-closed status of the fifteen EBC tickets in the days leading up to the meeting.

On October 17 we heard back from Commissioner for Patents Udupa that she was not only researching the status of the fifteen EBC tickets that we had listed for her on October 12, but she was also researching the status of “over 350 EBC tickets” that had been opened relating to bugs in Patent Center.  She wrote:

As to the EBC tickets, you have only identified 16 [sic] of the over 350 EBC tickets that have been submitted [about Patent Center].  I am glad that you are only currently concerned about a small percentage (less than 5%). However, to be thorough, I am still completing my full review of these tickets and I look forward to discussing the EBC ticket issue tomorrow.

You can see the Commissioner’s October 17 email message here.

As you may imagine, we were very much looking forward to hearing back from Commissioner Udupa on October 18 about her review of the status of “over 350 EBC tickets” that had been opened by the EBC in response to bug reports from users of Patent Center.

Unfortunately, during the October 18 meeting itself, we did not hear back from her about the fifteen EBC tickets.  Nor did we get to hear from Commissioner Udupa during the October 18 meeting about her “full review” of those 350 EBC tickets that she was on the verge of completing as of the previous day.

Again I should emphasize that during the October 18 meeting itself, Commissioner Udupa seemed utterly convinced that the general rule at the EBC must surely be that whenever the EBC opens an EBC ticket about a Patent Center bug, of course the EBC sooner or later gets back to the person who opened the EBC ticket about the Patent Center bug.  And again I should emphasize that during the October 18 meeting itself, she seemed incredulous at our claim that not even once in the five-year history of Patent Center had the EBC ever gotten back to anybody.  Everything about her words and body language and facial expression indicated that she thought we were not telling the truth about this.

She said that later she would investigate this further with the EBC and she would get back to us about this.

More than three weeks have passed and we have not heard back from Commissioner Udupa about this question of whether she was correct (that in general the situation is that the EBC does routinely get back to people about outstanding EBC tickets that relate to Patent Center) or whether we are correct (that the EBC has never, even once, gotten back to the USPTO customer about an EBC ticket relating to a bug in Patent Center).

This has prompted us to send a followup letter, on paper, to Commissioner Udupa.  The USPTO says she will receive the paper letter this coming Friday, November 17.  You can see the letter here.  (Update:  you can see the delivery report at right.)

The letter has two “asks”.  It asks if she can please get back to us about the open-or-closed status of the fifteen EBC tickets that we listed for her in our October 12 email message.  And it asks if she can please get back to us about the open-or-closed status of the “over 350 EBC tickets” relating to Patent Center that she had almost finished her “full review” of on October 17 (email message).

What would be very disappointing is if we were to fail to hear back even now from Commissioner Udupa about the open-or-closed status of the specific 15 EBC tickets relating to Patent Center that we had asked her about on October 12.  And it would likewise be very disappointing if we were to fail to hear back even now from Commissioner Udupa about the open-or-closed status of the over 350 EBC tickets about Patent Center which she told us she had been on the verge of having “fully reviewed” as of October 17.

If we were to fail to hear back from Commissioner Udupa in response to this letter, I think it would be reasonable to conclude that she is tacitly admitting that she was wrong when she said the EBC gets back to people about EBC tickets about Patent Center.  If we were to fail to hear back from Commissioner Udupa in response to this letter, I think it would be reasonable to conclude that she is tacitly admitting that we were correct when we told her that the EBC has never, not even once, gotten back to people about EBC tickets about Patent Center.

We very much look forward to hearing back from Commissioner Udupa about this.