Bluesky: @oppedahl.com
Russia has joined the Hague Agreement.
On November 30, 2017, the Government of the Russian Federation deposited its instrument of ratification of the Hague Agreement with WIPO’s Director General Francis Gurry. The Hague Agreement will thus enter into force in the Russian Federation on February 28, 2018.
Here is a box of chocolates from Classified, the sort-of-secret restaurant at Newark Airport for those who fly frequently on United Airlines.
It will be recalled (see blog post of November 3, 2017) that the search fee to be paid by a US filer selecting ISA/RU was scheduled for a fee increase today, December 6, 2017.
The fee increase, from $482 to $698, has indeed taken place.
You do not need to worry about accidentally paying the incorrect fee amount, because EFS-Web and ePCT have both been updated to reflect this new fee amount.
As of today the various searching authorities available to those who file in RO/US, ranked by the amount of the search fee, are:
There are many factors in addition to price which a filer might wish to take into account when selecting an International Searching Authority.
A blog reader posted this comment recently:
I’m less interested in how long it takes to get PPH decisions, and more interested in how long it takes to get a first Office Action when using PPH. It doesn’t help my client to be able to say that an application is on the PPH track. It helps my client to have an issued patent. Do you know of any data regarding this? I don’t see anything useful at https://www.uspto.gov/corda/dashboards/patents/main.dashxml
This reader is correct that the USPTO dashboard is silent on this particular delay, namely how long it takes, after the grant of a PPH petition, to receive a first Office Action.
We’ve tracked such pendency over many hundreds of PPH cases on our docket. I’ll try to answer the reader’s question and offer some practice tips.
This coming Tuesday is the third of a four-part series of webinars about ePCT.
Part 3. Follow-on filings.
- Best Practice for doing a 92bis change as an Action.
- Best Practice for doing an Article 19 Amendment as an Action.
- Best Practice for filing a Demand.
For more information or to register, click here.
Readers will recall (perhaps from my blog post of October 13) that the search fee for ISA/EP will increase (for US filers) on December 1, 2017. This offers an opportunity to save a little money. If your client is planning to file a PCT application in the next week or two, and is planning to pick ISA/EP, consider filing it on November 30 rather than December 1. This will save $139 in search fees.
A long time ago we had a special clock with four time zones. We correspond a lot with clients in China. And we often need to keep track of when it will be midnight at the USPTO or at WIPO. The four-zone clock helped us keep track of these things.
But the special clock was noisy. It clicked as the second hand advanced, and somehow the clicks really carried through the office. Not only that, but all four of the clock faces clicked and the clicks were never quite simultaneous across the four faces. So there were 240 clicks per minute. We eventually scrapped that clock.
Now we have a new four-zone clock as you can see in the photograph. The clocks are silent. And the clocks synchronize their time with WWV.
Two of the clocks (the two in the middle) automatically update themselves for Daylight Saving Time. The one on the right will require manual adjustment four times per year (see blog article).
We filed a bunch of new design patent applications in the USPTO this past Tuesday the 14th.
I am astonished (in a good way) to see that USPTO has mailed Filing Receipts for two of the design applications today, the 16th.
In a quarter of a century of interaction with the USPTO as a registered practitioner, I have never seen a filing receipt arrive in a mere two days. Until today, and today it happened in two cases.
(That’s the good news. The bad news is that in each of these cases the FOAP is 44 months. More than three and a half years, it seems, that we will have to wait for the cases to be examined.)
Have others been receiving Filing Receipts this quick? I wonder if we are just lucky somehow, or if this is a (welcome) recent trend at the USPTO. Please post a comment below.
The first of four webinars about ePCT will take place starting in about eight hours. Here are the dates and topics: Continue reading “Imminent opportunities to learn about ePCT”
On December 1, 2017, Brazil will join the DAS system. Brazil’s participation will be as a “depositing Office”. Here is an example of how this participation will benefit patent applicants. Continue reading “Brazil will soon join DAS”