Another Patentcenter defect: “Open Link in New Window” rarely works

Suppose you are logged in at Patentcenter.  It will often happen that you want to open a link in a new window, rather than merely clicking on a link.  For example you may be doing a PAIR-like function, viewing the contents of an application file, and now you need to e-file a document in that application, which is an EFS-Web-like function.  So of course what you want is to open a link in a new window, so that you can simultaneously keep open both a PAIR-like window and an EFS-like window.  To do this, you might go to a link such as “Upload documents” and you might right-click on it with the idea of opening that link in a new window.  Here is what that will look like:

click to enlarge

So then what should appear next in the new window is the page for uploading documents.  That is to say, what should appear is an EFS-Web-like screen.

But that is not what happens.  Instead, Patentcenter plays dumb, and merely opens up the least helpful possible page which is the main starting page for Patentcenter.  It is then up to you to click and mouse and click and mouse to drill down until you get to the “Upload documents” screen.

  • There is a similar defect in Patentcenter if you right-click on “File third-party preissuance submission”.
  • There is a similar defect in Patentcenter if you right-click on “Upload corrected ADS”.
  • There is a similar defect in Patentcenter if you right-click on “Web 85b – Issue fee transmittal”.
  • There is a similar defect in Patentcenter if you right-click on “eTerminal Disclaimer”.

There are similar defects in all of the drop-down tabs in the dark blue bar across the top of Patentcenter.

This is Patentcenter trouble ticket CP65.