An annual ritual for me – scheduled postings about DST

Hello dear readers.  There is an annual ritual which I keep hoping would eventually cease to be necessary, but yet again today the ritual presents itself.  What I am talking about is the annual scheduling of four blog postings about Daylight Saving Time. 

Those who have been subscribed to my blog since it began in 2014 will by now have gotten very familiar with this annual ritual.  Each year there are four dates to keep track of:

• • the date in March when DST begins in the US but not in Europe
  • the date two weeks later in March when DST begins in Europe
  • the date in October when DST ends in Europe but not in the US
  • the date in November when DST ends in the US

In 2023 those four dates are March 12, March 26, October 29, and November 5.

The chief concern for me with these blog posts is that there are readers who sometimes get ready to e-file something in one or another of the WIPO e-filing systems, and they are e-filing something that urgently needs to receive a same-day filing date.  If the e-filing system is ePCT or if it is the Madrid Protocol system, then the filer is keeping close track of the very important question “what time is it in Geneva?”

For me, located in the Mountain Time Zone in the US, this usually means that I need to get my e-filing finished by 4PM (which is eight hours different from the time in Geneva).  (The Hague e-filing system tries to give the filer whichever time zone works best for the filer — which might be the time zone in Geneva or the time zone where the filer is located.)

But there are these special times in the spring and in the autumn of the year when the time zone difference for me is not eight hours.  During those special times, the difference is a mere seven hours.  It means that I have until 5PM (local time) to complete my e-filing and I will still receive a same-day filing date.

The first of the special times is a two-week period in March.  The second of the special times is a one-week period in autumn.

Which brings me to the main point of today’s blog article.  Today is the day on which I have scheduled four blog postings for those dates later this year.  Yes, the hosting platform for my blog is a platform that permits me to schedule a particular blog posting to “happen” at a date and time of my choosing.  So I have scheduled a first of four blog postings for March 12, 2023, a second blog posting for March 26, 2023, a third blog posting for October 29, 2023, and a fourth blog posting for November 5, 2023.  The idea is that readers of this blog will be reminded in an automatic way of the need to keep track of what time of day matters (locally) to get a same-day filing date at the IB.

(If you have some colleague in your office who regularly e-files things in the ePCT system, or who regularly e-files things in the Madrid Protocol system, you might want them to subscribe to this blog, so that they could receive these automatic reminders about the four important dates for DST.)

Now of course what I keep wishing is that eventually the EU will follow through on its efforts to stop the clock-changing that is DST.  And of course I wish that the US government will take measures to stop the clock-changing.  But as of right now, I have not gotten my wishes.  2023 is yet another year in which this crazy business of clock-changing will take place.  This is the seventh year that I have felt the need to do these four scheduled postings.