Author: Carl

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Password complexity rules are out of date

We are all familiar with systems that force the user to select a password using a complexity rule.  You know, the rules that say that the password is required to contain an upper case letter and a lower case letter and a numerical digit and at least one character that requires at least two hands to type on a keyboard.

And we are all familiar with systems that force the user to change his or her password frequently — every few months for example.

It turns out that these rules are outdated and should be scrapped.

Continue reading “Password complexity rules are out of date”

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Joining the DAS club – Eurasian Patent Office

Logo of the Eurasian Patent Office

The intellectual property community benefits each time another Office joins the Digital Access Service (DAS).

The good news is that on November 1, 2017, the Eurasian Patent Office (EAPO) will join DAS.

EAPO will participate with DAS in both directions:

  • as a depositing Office, and
  • as an accessing Office.

The participation will include color documents as well as gray scale and black and white documents.

This is very good news.

Perhaps the biggest patent office (in terms of volume of patent filings) that has not yet joined DAS is the European Patent Office.  Here is a set of slides which EPO presented in May of 2015.  At slide 8, the EPO said:

It will surely be a welcome development when EPO joins DAS.

Another welcome development will be when EUIPO joins DAS, which will facilitate exchange of priority documents for the purpose of industrial design applications.

(See followup article on EPO’s plans to join DAS.)

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How to decide when to destroy an old patent file?

Franconia archive (click to enlarge)

In the EFS-Web listserv, a practitioner posts this question:

We have decided to go paperless for the future and to destroy all of our archived paper files for the period since every application appears on the PTO PAIR Image File Wrapper. Does anyone know what date the PTO began imaging every application filed? I know for a while they were going back and imaging some files, but not all. I want to know after what date we can be confident that the image file wrapper is in PAIR.

In this blog post I will try to answer the “what date” question and I will offer a thought or two about how a practitioner might decide which files can be destroyed.

Continue reading “How to decide when to destroy an old patent file?”

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Gaining incontestability economically

The majority of US trademark registrations lack “incontestable” status, because the owner of the registration has not filed “Section 15” papers at the USPTO.  (I have blogged here about what “incontestable” status means and why a trademark owner might want to gain “incontestable” status.)  In this article I will talk about ways to gain “incontestable” status economically.

Continue reading “Gaining incontestability economically”

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Dulles’s C and D concourse

By Joe Ravi, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

If, like me, you often fly United Airlines to and from Washington, DC, then you have, like me, spent time in the C and D concourse of Dulles Airport. And you have some sense how decrepit and discouraging that concourse is.  The main terminal was designed in 1958 by famed Finnish-American architect Eero Saarinen, and it is highly regarded for its graceful beauty, suggestive of flight.  But passengers spend little time in the main terminal.  For United passengers, most time is spent in the C-D concourse. Continue reading “Dulles’s C and D concourse”

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Indonesia joins Madrid Protocol

H.E. Dr. Yasonna Laoly, Minister for Law and Human Rights, Indonesia, and Francis Gurry, Director General, WIPO (click to enlarge)

On October 2, 2017, Indonesia deposited its instrument of accession to the Madrid Protocol at the International Bureau of the World Intellectual Property Organization. The Madrid Protocol will thus enter into force for Indonesia on January 2, 2018.

This brings to 100 the number of members of the Madrid system. Continue reading “Indonesia joins Madrid Protocol”

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What’s so great about ePCT?

A member of the PCT listserv asks:

Am I missing something about what is so great about preparing an PCT application package via ePCT?

For most all of my PCT applications, I have to file with the RO/US and elect the ISA/US. Thus, in such a situation, I understand that the only thing ePCT is good for is to prepare the Zip file as one has to use EFS-Web to file the Zip file, the application papers, and pay the fees.

To me, the ePCT interface is cumbersome, more so than the PCT-Safe software.

So, I don’t understand what is so great about ePCT… Can someone enlighten me?

My comments are below. Continue reading “What’s so great about ePCT?”