Forty-two Patent Practitioners write to Director Vidal about PCT

(Update:  we now have a phone call scheduled with the acting director of IPLA.  Read about it here.)

(Update:  Director Vidal has responded to acknowledge receiving the letter.  See blog posting.)

Forty-two Patent Practitioners have written to Director Kathi Vidal in a letter dated April 26, 2022, asking her to help the USPTO get closer to providing world-class service to the PCT applicant community.  You can see the signed letter here.  Here are the “asks”:  Continue reading “Forty-two Patent Practitioners write to Director Vidal about PCT”

Progress of PCT Receiving Offices towards participation in the DAS system

(Update:  Forty-two Patent Practitioners have written to Director Vidal about this.  See blog article.)

There is a recent development that the RO/TR (PCT Receiving Office of the Turkish Patent and Trademark Office) will become a Depositing Office in the WIPO DAS system, with effect from June 1, 2022.  Turkey’s decision to be trendy, modern and up-to-date in this regard brings to twenty-four the number of patent offices around the world whose Receiving Offices have become Depositing Offices in the DAS system.  

This raises the natural question of what the progress is of the various PCT Receiving Offices in this important area.  Which PCT Receiving Offices are trendy, modern and up-to-date?  Which PCT Receiving Offices are laggards?  It is instructive to rank the Receiving Offices based on how many applications get filed there, and then to check to see which of those ROs have taken the step of becoming a Depositing Office in the DAS system.  Here is how things stand as of the present. (Preview: The USPTO fares poorly in this assessment.) Continue reading “Progress of PCT Receiving Offices towards participation in the DAS system”

WIPO provides another option for two-factor authentication in ePCT

If you want to do any of the good things in ePCT, you have to be logged in using two-factor authentication (“2FA”).  (WIPO chooses to call this “strong authentication”.)  One of the nice things is that WIPO offers several distinct kinds of 2FA that a user can choose from.  Now WIPO has added yet another option for a type of 2FA that users can use.  The newly added option is something they call “push notification”.   It uses something called the ForgeRock Authenticator app.  I think that many ePCT users will find this new “push notification” type of 2FA to be extremely quick and convenient and will end up choosing to use this kind of 2FA to the exclusion of all of the other kinds of 2FA.  In this blog article:

  • I will briefly describe this new “push notification” approach,
  • I will explain how to install it and set it up,
  • I will briefly remind the reader of the three other types of 2FA that WIPO offers for use with ePCT, listing a few factors for comparison among the four approaches for 2FA, and then
  • I will talk about what I think are the best and smartest ways to use this new “push notification” approach. 

If you have tried the ForgeRock Authenticator app with ePCT, please post a comment below.

Continue reading “WIPO provides another option for two-factor authentication in ePCT”

Please sign this PCT-related letter to the new Director of the USPTO

(The letter has been signed and has been sent to Director Vidal.  You can see it here.)

Hello Colleagues.  Here is a letter that I plan to send to Director Kathi Vidal.  My goal is to send it on Tuesday, April 26, 2022.  What this means is that I hope you will sign the letter between now and the close of business on Monday, April 25, 2022.   Here are the “asks”:  Continue reading “Please sign this PCT-related letter to the new Director of the USPTO”

How to be unwise when naming your firm

One of the dumbest things that you can do when you are naming your intellectual property firm, it turns out, is picking a name that is more than 35 characters in length.  If you make this mistake, it means you often can’t get paid.

A related dumb thing is arranging to have a street address that exceeds 35 characters in length.  This, too, might mean that you can’t get paid.

It turns out that there is a simple and quick fix for this problem, as I will mention at the end of this blog article.

Continue reading “How to be unwise when naming your firm”

Now #63 in adult and continuing education

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Amazon maintains sales statistics on every large or small thing that a person could possibly want to know about its book sales.  My newly released book The 2022 Schwegman Advanced PCT Training: the presentation slides has apparently just now reached a ranking of number 63 in Amazon’s category of adult and continuing education.  As you can see in the screen shot at right, this book trails two positions below a study guide for a commercial drivers license test.  

I think that this tells you not so much about a large number of copies of my book being purchased, but instead about the relatively small number of books that people purchase that fall within this category of adult and continuing education.

For context, Amazon says that among books generally, my newly released book has a “best sellers” ranking in position 112,026.  

Time of day at IB returns to normal for US filers

On March 13 I blogged that US filers filing documents at the International Bureau needed to pay extra close attention to what time it is in Switzerland.  The reason is that in the US, Daylight Saving Time happened on March 13.  But it did not happen on that day in Switzerland.  This meant that for the past two weeks, a US-based filer in (for example) the Mountain Time zone would be able to e-file in the IB as late as 5PM and still get a same-day filing date.  This differed from the usual drop-dead time of 4PM.

Today (March 27, 2022) is the day that Daylight Saving Time happens in Switzerland. The consequence of this is that the time difference between the US filer’s time zone and the time at the IB is back to normal.  So for a US-based filer in the Mountain Time zone, the drop-dead time returns today to the usual 4PM.

This change affects for example a US-based filer filing a PCT application at the RO/IB, and it affects the US-based filer filing a design application in the IB’s Hague Agreement e-filing system.  It also affects the US-based filer filing documents at the IB relating to the Madrid Protocol, such as for example a Subsequent Designation.

Most readers of my blog will appreciate that the correct terminology is not “Daylight Savings Time” but “Daylight Saving Time”.

Many readers will also appreciate that EU has been trying for the past two years to get rid of this clock-changing.  There have also been largely feckless efforts in various states of the US to bring an end to this clock-changing. I personally would like it if the place where I am located, and the places where patent and trademark offices are that I care about, would all bring an end to clock-changing.

A very good doorstop, or two PCT training books

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What weighs more than two kilograms (more than 4½ pounds), is more than four centimeters thick (more than an inch and a half), costs about twenty dollars, contains two of every presentation slide from my recent fourteen-hour webinar series of advanced training on the Patent Cooperation Treaty, and can serve as an extremely functional doorstop?  The answer is, of course, two of the books at right, duct-taped together.  Continue reading “A very good doorstop, or two PCT training books”

Now you can binge-watch 14 hours of the Patent Cooperation Treaty

Would you like to attend a free-of-charge two-day advanced course on the Patent Cooperation Treaty?  Here is your opportunity. This series of fifteen lectures on the PCT is available free of charge.  You can watch these lectures from anywhere in the world, at whatever hour of the day or night is convenient for you.  You can watch these lectures on your computer, on your smart phone, or on a tablet.  You could project the lectures onto a big screen in a conference room and watch the lectures as a group activity.