Our firm has been using VOIP.MS as our telephone service provider since 2017, with no regrets. Across those seven years we have saved at least twenty thousand dollars compared with what our telephone services would have cost from any other service provider. This blog article provides a reminder of one of the reasons that I like VOIP.MS, namely geographic server diversity. Continue reading “A reminder of why I like VOIP.MS as our telephone service provider”
The Trademark Office corrects its databases
About thirteen hours ago I posted a blog article noting that the Trademark Office made lots of mistakes when it issued six thousand trademark registrations yesterday. In that blog article, I wrote:
I imagine this blog article will eventually prompt the Trademark Office to correct its databases for the six thousand registrations that issued yesterday. I wonder how many days that will take.
The blog article also got cited in the e-Trademarks listserv.
We now have our answer. It took about thirteen hours. Just now, corrected Notices of Registration have arrived and they actually cite the registration number instead the way it was before, with a gap in the text where the registration number should be. Previously the registration number was missing from TSDR but as of now, the Trademark Office has updated TSDR to cite the registration number. Previously, the “maintenance” tab was missing but now it is there.
For those keeping score at home, no, nobody at the Trademark Office has gotten in touch to thank me for pointing out this problem.
USPTO trademark databases broken
(Update: the USPTO fixed its mistakes — see blog article.)
Yesterday (Tuesday, April 9, 2024) was registration day for two of my trademark applications. I know this because, among other things, I am in possession of the official Certificates of Registration, which the USPTO cryptographically signed on March 24, 2024. Which means that the USPTO has known the registration numbers since at least as long ago as March 24 (more than two weeks ago). But the USPTO trademark databases are broken. Continue reading “USPTO trademark databases broken”
Some VOIP analog telephone adapters are very feature-rich
In the old days, a POTS (plain old telephone service) telephone, also sometimes called an “analog phone”, got its dial tone from a pair of copper wires that led to a telephone company central office. The distance between the telephone and the central office might be miles. The telephone company might have sophisticated equipment in the central office that can test for faults on the telephone line, such as spurious voltages or shorted connections.
Nowadays if the customer is trendy, modern, and up-to-date, the POTS telephone will get its dial tone from an ATA (analog telephone adapter). At above right we see a functional blog diagram including an ATA. It turns out that some ATAs have sophisticated circuitry, like that in a legacy telephone company central office, that can test for faults on the telephone line, such as spurious voltages or shorted connections. Continue reading “Some VOIP analog telephone adapters are very feature-rich”
A helpful report from Chico Gholz on pending interferences
Those who entered the US patent community only recently (within, say, the past decade) could be forgiven for being unaware of something called an “interference proceeding”. Continue reading “A helpful report from Chico Gholz on pending interferences”
Getting your streaming television onto IPv6
This blog article reports success (screen shot at right) at getting a particular smart television connected to the world through IPv6. But the more general goal of this article is to gently remind the reader that he or she may wish to tackle this project in his or her home as well. Continue reading “Getting your streaming television onto IPv6”
USPTO gives legal advice, and it’s flat wrong
When I was first in practice, you could purchase up to three months of extensions of time to pay an Issue Fee. That ended around a decade ago. For the past decade, the situation has been that if you are as little as one day late in paying your Issue Fee, the application will go abandoned. You would then be faced with the prospect of having to pay a USPTO fee of $2100 (or $840, or $420) along with a Petition to Revive, to overcome the abandonment.
With this in mind, here is a screen shot from Patent Center in an application that has received a Notice of Allowance. For this allowed US patent application, the legal advice from the USPTO is:
Payment of fees during this stage of the application process is optional, but failure to pay fees in a timely manner may cause delays in the processing of your application.
This legal advice is, as any experienced practitioner knows, flatly false. In no way is the payment of the Issue Fee “optional”. And the consequence of failing to pay the Issue Fee “in a timely manner” does not merely “cause delays in the processing” — it abandons the application.
For an experienced practitioner, this wrong legal advice probably routinely gets ignored. But in recent years the USPTO has done lots of outreach urging inventors to file pro se. It is surely only a matter of time before some pro se inventor believes this wrong advice and ends up with no patent at all.
Continue reading “USPTO gives legal advice, and it’s flat wrong”
How law firms and corporations are dealing with USPTO’s non-DOCX penalty
Some firms and corporations are trying to figure out what to do about the USPTO’s DOCX initiative (the $400 non-DOCX penalty) that came into effect on January 17, 2024. Other firms and corporations have already decided what to do about the DOCX initiative. In recent days I surveyed firms and corporations about their present approaches to the DOCX initiative. How many law firms have written to their clients, telling them that the firm refuses to take the risks of filing in DOCX? How many firms and corporations have decided not to file in DOCX format (meaning that they have decided to pay the non-DOCX penalty)? How many firms and corporations have decided to file in the DOCX-plus-auxiliary-PDF path? How many firms and corporations have decided to file in the DOCX-alone path? Over 150 law firms and corporations responded to the survey. Read on to see the survey findings.
Continue reading “How law firms and corporations are dealing with USPTO’s non-DOCX penalty”
Please respond to this survey about your use of USPTO’s DOCX e-filing paths
(Update: the survey responses have been received. You can see the survey findings.)
Some firms and corporations are trying to figure out what to do about the USPTO’s DOCX initiative (the $400 non-DOCX penalty) that came into effect on January 17, 2024. Other firms and corporations have already decided what to do about the DOCX initiative. This survey hopes to collect responses from firms and corporations about their present approaches to the DOCX initiative. How many firms and corporations have decided not to file in DOCX format (meaning that they have decided to pay the non-DOCX penalty)? How many firms and corporations have decided to file in the DOCX-plus-auxiliary-PDF path? How many firms and corporations have decided to file in the DOCX-alone path?
Please respond to this survey.
It is likely to be very helpful to the patent community to have lots of responses from lots of firms and corporations. I hope that lots of members of the patent community will respond, and I thank you in advance for your participation.
Pursuing rehearing and rehearing en banc in the “no more notice-and-comment needed” opinion
As I described in this blog article, I fear that a recent opinion from a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit will signal to the USPTO that going forward, it can duck the APA’s notice-and-comment requirements by arbitrarily deeming any rulemaking it does as merely “procedural”.
It seems to me that what needs to happen next is a rehearing, or a rehearing en banc, at the Federal Circuit, on this case (In re Chestek PLLC, February 13, 2024, slip opinion).
Two things are, I think, needed if this petition is to move forward and if it is to have a reasonable chance of success.
Pledging funds. The applicant incurred substantial expense pursuing the appeal this far and, I believe, is only going to be able to pursue rehearing if there is support from the IP community. Earlier today I set up a pledge system by which members of the IP community may pledge support. As of right now there are nine pledges adding up to $6K. I believe the applicant will only be able to proceed if at least $35K is pledged.
Committing to amici. I think that for a reasonable chance of success, there will need to be cogent amicus briefs alerting the Federal Circuit to how much unchecked power this puts in the hands of the PTO. This would hopefully include briefs from the relevant professional associations. I am aware of two amicus commitments thus far from members of the IP community.
I invite readers to pledge contributions toward this petition effort.