How often do you check the Systems Status page?

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If you regularly make use of TEAS or PAIR or Patentcenter or EFS-Web, you probably find yourself checking the USPTO Systems Status and Availability web page (screen shot at right) from time to time.

Wouldn’t it be nice if somehow you could be notified automatically when that web page changes?  Well, now you can be notified automatically, if you choose to participate in a beta test of my new change-detection system. 

This new system uses changedetection.io, described thusly:

The best and simplest self-hosted free open source website change detection tracking, monitoring and notification service.  An alternative to Visualping, Watchtower etc.   Designed for simplicity – the main goal is to simply monitor which websites had a text change, for free.

If you would like to participate in the beta test of this system, drop me an email.  I can then add your email address to the list of people receiving notifications.

21 Replies to “How often do you check the Systems Status page?”

  1. Regarding the RSS feed:

    1. The target URL displayed by my feed reader:

    https://ebizdetect.oppedahl.com/%3Cbase-url-env-var-not-set%3E/diff/1982b2a6-8fb6-4fc1-9723-49ca168ceeb6

    does not work, and there is a reference to a “base-url-env-var-not-set” in the URL, and also in the element of the documents delivered in the feed.

    2. Is the feed published at specific periodic intervals, or whenever a change is detected.

    3. If the latter, how often does the changedetection.io service pull the PTO’s status page?

  2. Carl, I appreciate your effort. But I sense that monitoring the USPTO status page is not the most timely way to identify outages – for example right now, where Private PAIR and Patentcenter seems to both be down. But maybe there is a more direct way be monitoring certain pages in PatentCenter and PAIR to identify outages long before the USPTO updates its status?

    1. You’re missing the point here. Yes of course it would be good to have some automated way to get notified when one or another of USPTO’s e-commerce systems has crashed. Of course you are right about that.

      But the point here is to have an automated way to get notified when the USPTO does actually lift a finger to post some bit of news on its ebiz page. The way things have been up until now is that the only way you would learn that the USPTO has posted something on its ebiz page is by … wait for it … going and checking that page yourself, maybe ten times a day, and hoping to catch it if they posted something. The other way is to have the super good luck that a professional colleague at some other firm might have been checking it ten times a day, and they notice that something got posted, and they post a notification about this in the relevant listserv. e-Trademarks listserv, PAIR listserv, whatevever.

  3. I would like to participate in the beta test of the Systems Status page. Please add my email address to the list of people receiving notifications. Thanks!

  4. I would like to participate in the beta test of the Systems Status page. Please add my email address to the list of people receiving notifications. Thanks!

  5. I chose the path less traveled. I installed Python, Changedetection.io, updated my Windows path settings, set the USPTO status page to be monitored, figured out how to send Apprise email notifications, etc.

    Success! But for the very long time that it took, $7/mo. to have someone do this for you instead is a steal.

    Keep up the good work.

    Josh

  6. I appreciate this suggestion – but honestly, I have no faith in the accuracy of the USPTO Systems Status and Availability page.

    Most of my interest with USPTO resources involves either Patent Center or the USPTO data repositories and APIs. I have found that these resources frequently encounter operational problems that are not reflected in the Systems Status page. For instance, the availability of Patent Center (like PAIR before it) is best described as “variable.” Same with the Open Data Portal APIs. Also, the USPTO data repositories that feed several of the APIs are only sporadically updated. However, the Systems Status page does not reflect any such issues with these data sources – only outages due to planned maintenance.

    This is a problem for USPTO customers who depend on the availability and currency of these data sources.

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