FedNow (Wikipedia article) is an instant payment service developed by the Federal Reserve for depository institutions in the United States, which allows individuals and businesses to send and receive money. FedNow is intended to be faster and less expensive than other traditional ways that banks in the US send money to each other. FedNow is instant, which is better than the delays of hours or even days for ACH and bank wire transactions. Bank customers, including businesses and individuals, can benefit greatly from FedNow. Does your financial institution participate in FedNow? Continue reading “Does your bank participate in FedNow?”
I unplug a VOIP phone, and later I receive an email telling me it got unplugged
Yes, just an hour ago I unplugged a VOIP phone, and 45 minutes later I received an email telling me that it had gotten unplugged. It means that my spiffy new SIP trunk monitor is working.
It will be recalled (see blog article dated June 25, 2023) that I fished for people to join me in an open-source project. The idea was to set up some PHP script that would run periodically, interrogating an API at the VOIP.MS company, querying the registration status of a long list of SIP trunks (what the company calls “subaccounts”). Now I have this working, in a sort of simple way.
This kind of monitoring actually monitors quite a few things. Suppose the VOIP device being monitored is a desktop phone. Then this monitor will tip me off if any of these things happen:
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- Somebody unplugging the phone itself.
- Failure in the power-over-ethernet delivery of power to the phone.
- Loss of Internet connectivity at the place where the phone is located.
You can read about it here.
Advanced seminar on the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT)
Join the nice people of WIPO for the eagerly awaited annual advanced seminar on the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) of October 2 and 3, 2024, brought to you by the PCT Legal and User Relations Division. Continue reading “Advanced seminar on the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT)”
Looking to get somebody to write some PHP code for me
(Update: prompted by helpful comments from readers, I was able to write the code myself. Click on the link to see the happy results.)
Hello readers. I wonder if somebody knows a PHP coder who would like to get hired to write some PHP code for me? Here is a description of the code that I hope to pay somebody to write.
Equity, Diversity, and Inclusivity CLE for patent and trademark attorneys
Colorado Rule 250.2(1)(a)(i) says that beginning January 1, 2023, every registered attorney must achieve at least two credit hours per reporting period in the area of equity, diversity, and inclusivity.
The Colorado office in charge of CLE lists three areas that are supposed to be covered in CLE courses about equity, diversity, and inclusivity, namely:
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- equal access to the legal system;
- competent representation of diverse populations;
- the recognition, mitigation, or elimination of bias in the legal profession or the legal system.
What may a patent attorney or trademark attorney do to respond in a meaningful way to licensure requirements regarding equity, diversity, and inclusivity? In this webinar, join your presenter, Carl Oppedahl, in trying to figure out what the problems are, in such areas as patent and trademark prosecution, for which an EDI CLE requirement might be a solution.
When and where? Thursday, September 5, 2024, Noon to 1:40 PM Mountain Time (100 minutes)
Format: Live webinar
For more information, or to register, click here.
Trademark Office can’t handle its own characters
Seems to me that the Trademark Office people at the USPTO ought to have put software safeguards in place so that the Trademark Office could handle its own characters. The Trademark Office has not put such safeguards into place. Continue reading “Trademark Office can’t handle its own characters”
Ethics CLE – securing electronic communications
In nearly every state, ethics rules require a lawyer to make reasonable efforts to prevent the inadvertent or unauthorized disclosure of, or unauthorized access to, information relating to the representation of a client. Colorado Rule 1.6(c), for example, says:
A lawyer shall make reasonable efforts to prevent the inadvertent or unauthorized disclosure of, or unauthorized access to, information relating to the representation of a client.
Does it violate ethics rules to use email in client communications? Does it violate ethics rules to use ordinary text messaging on a mobile phone? What about Skype, or Whatsapp, Viber or Signal? Continue reading “Ethics CLE – securing electronic communications”
EUIPO and Benelux are missing from Trademark Center
The executive summary is that the USPTO developers of Trademark Center made a big mistake in the coding of the priority claims in a trademark application — they failed to provide EUIPO and Benelux as trademark offices in which a priority application might have been filed. In doing so, they failed to learn from the identical mistake that had been made by the USPTO developers of Patent Center, who had failed to provide EPO and OAPI and ARIPO and EAPO as patent offices in which a priority application might have been filed. Continue reading “EUIPO and Benelux are missing from Trademark Center”
Another try with Bluesky and Mastodon
Well, folks, I am only slowly making progress at setting up Bluesky and Mastodon on this blog. This is a test posting on this blog to see if it propagates through to Bluesky and Mastodon.
As best I can discern, my Bluesky identifier is @oppedahl.com “ant-like.bsky.social” and my Mastodon ID is “@ant_like@mastodon.social”.
If any reader is an experienced user of Bluesky or Mastodon, I’d be grateful if you can look to see if I have made progress.
Mastodon, Bluesky, and RSS
Recently John Welch, the author of the TTABlog, posted to the e-Trademarks listserv to ask this:
I’ve been tweeting my blog posts for many years now, but I am fed up with the increasingly vile content on X/Twitter.
Can anyone recommend a good alternative?
Several listserv members offered very helpful suggestions. Perhaps the most helpful response was from Rebecca Tushnet, who wrote:
For my own reading, my current choice is Bluesky + a bunch of RSS feeds, including John’s indispensable TTABlog.
FWIW: I now have automatic crossposting from my blog to Mastodon, Bluesky, … RSS feed, and LinkedIn.
It is true, by the way, that John’s TTABlog is indispensable.
I have just now added a couple of plugins to my blog that I hope will automatically feed my blog postings to both Mastodon and Bluesky. I would be grateful if a reader who uses Mastodon can take a look to see if I succeeded. Likewise, I would be grateful if a reader who uses Bluesky can take a look to see if I succeeded.
I have also added an RSS feed icon which you can see at right. I would be grateful if a reader who uses an RSS reader can take a look to see if I succeeded.