Folks, I am reminded that there are bright and alert and nice people in the world.
I encountered a problem in Patentcenter recently. (For reasons that will become clear, in this posting I am going to avoid discussing the particular problem in detail.) I posted the problem in https://patentcenter-tickets.oppedahl.com/ as usual, giving it a new patentcenter trouble ticket number starting with “CP”. This was one of those trouble reports where a screen shot is part of explaining what the problem is that is being reported.
I then kept in mind that the CP trouble tickets work best if the user has reported the problem to the EBC and has obtained an EBC trouble ticket number. So I phoned up the EBC and reached an agent. I started to describe the problem and I got to the part where I was going to need to email the screen shot to the agent (to EBC@uspto.gov). The very nice agent (who must remain nameless for reasons that will become clear) said that because of the workgroup that the agent is in, it would take a while for the email to get forwarded to the agent. So on a whim I then invited the agent to go to the patentcenter trouble tickets page and scroll down to the recently created trouble ticket. The agent reached the ticket that described the problem that was the reason for my call to the EBC.
I was fascinated by the next few things I heard from the agent. One of the agent’s reactions was that this ticket (as seen on the patentcenter trouble tickets page) provided a clear report of the problem, and the agent was able to see the screen shot right there on the screen. The agent’s next reaction was to comment that this was one of well over a hundred trouble tickets.
The reaction from the agent was along the lines of, wow this web page with all of these trouble tickets is a web page that actually works toward the shared goals of the USPTO and the customers, the shared goals of getting Patentcenter working well. It sounded like the agent was on the verge of sending a note to one or more colleagues at the EBC to point out this patentcenter trouble ticket page.
I felt like I had no choice but to mention that there are apparently people within the USPTO who don’t like this Patentcenter trouble ticket page at all, and that the agent might want to be a bit thoughtful about how to point this out to colleagues and which colleagues to point this out to.
But anyway, it was so nice to be reminded of the existence of yet another bright and alert and nice person at the EBC. Who, regrettably, must remain nameless.
Thanks for the reminder that there are some good people at the EBC.
There are absolutely good people at the PTO. Who are squished under the other kind.
That’s a pattern at the PTO — last week the Fitzpatrick PTAB decision (APJ Fitzpatrick wrote concurring opinions that disagreed with orthodoxy of PTO management and got punished for disagreeing with Chief APJ / Vice Chief — but Fitzpatrick’s views won out at Federal Circuit and Supreme Court.) See https://ipwatchdog.com/2023/05/11/mspb-grants-corrective-action-apj-uspto-retaliation-following-whistleblower-activity/id=160782 See especially the comment from “OMG Read the Opinion”