Let’s remind ourselves how the five biggest Offices for industrial design protection (called “ID5”) are coming along in terms of participation in the DAS system. It is recalled that the DAS system permits the exchange and retrieval of electronic certified copies of priority documents. So which Offices are trendy, modern, and up-to-date? Which of the ID5 Offices have not yet joined DAS for designs?
China, South Korea, and USPTO are trendy, modern, and up-to-date with respect to designs in the DAS system. Each of those Offices is both a Depositing Office and an Accessing Office for industrial designs.
The Japanese Patent Office (JPO) is an Accessing Office right now for designs. And JPO says it will become a Depositing Office for designs on January 1, 2020. The JPO will thus soon be trendy, modern, and up-to-date.
This leaves EUIPO (European Union Intellectual Property Office) as the remaining member of the ID5 as the straggler. It is hoped that EUIPO will soon join DAS for industrial designs, both as a Depositing Office and as an Accessing Office.
Carl,
Even though CNIPA is a depositing/accessing office for design patents/industrial designs per https://www.wipo.int/das/en/participating_offices/details.jsp?id=10490, foreign counsel in China is now instructing me that DAS can’t be used to access certified copy of a US filed design patent application per http://www.cnipa.gov.cn/zhfwpt/zlsclcggfw/yxqwjdzjh/syzs/index.htm (paragraph 2, part 2), 2nd sentence – need to hit translate to English). The relevant sections states “When the first application is a design application or a PCT international application, the patent office will not start the exchange service.” So, foreign counsel is telling me to obtain paper copy of certified documents for scanning and emailing. What am I missing here…? Is that paragraph related only to the old document exchange program, PDX? If so then it makes sense that PDX system would override DAS for design applications filed first in the US per https://blog.oppedahl.com/?p=2911.
Any idea when the PTO would start using DAS for design patent applications…?