Author: Carl

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e-filing at WIPO — back to normal

For the past week the situation for e-filing at WIPO, for most people in the US, has been that the local time to e-file so as to get a same-day filing date in Switzerland has been different from usual.  (The reason for this is that a week ago, people in Switzerland turned their clocks back.) But as of today, people in the US have turned their clocks back.  So things are back to normal.

For example if you are in the Mountain time zone, once again as of today you will be counting toward 4PM local time to get a same-day filing date in Switzerland.  (For the past week the answer was 5PM.)

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why the MyUSPTO check box doesn’t work

click to enlarge

(I have posted a followup article.)

Hello readers who are in the US.  We all are familiar with this checkbox “this is a computer that I trust and use regularly”.  USPTO tells us that supposedly if we check this box, then for the next 24 hours we will be saved from the time-waste of having to do the two-step authentication.  This check box is super important given that a year or so ago the USPTO went against user wishes and shortened the forced-logout time interval from 60 minutes to a mere 30 minutes.  Anyway as readers know, this check box almost never actually works.  Finally today I figured out why it almost never works. Continue reading “why the MyUSPTO check box doesn’t work”

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Update: Status of ID5 Offices in DAS

Let’s remind ourselves how the five biggest Offices for industrial design protection (called “ID5”) are coming along in terms of participation in the DAS system.  It is recalled that the DAS system permits the exchange and retrieval of electronic certified copies of priority documents.  So which Offices are trendy, modern, and up-to-date?  Which of the ID5 Offices have not yet joined DAS for designs?  Continue reading “Update: Status of ID5 Offices in DAS”

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Time zones and ePCT

Yesterday I blogged about the fact that Europe and US do their daylight saving time changes on different weekends:  E-filing at WIPO – you get an extra hour.  This prompted Ann Bardini of WIPO to write to me to offer a reminder of some of the features of ePCT that help users to keep track of when midnight is coming and when a filer’s last possible filing date is imminent.  With her permission I have more or less converted her email message into the following guest blog posting. Continue reading “Time zones and ePCT”

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Tenterhooks, or how the Hobson’s choice came out

Maybe some readers of the blog have been on tenterhooks for the past two days, hoping to hear what meal I was eventually offered yesterday on my return flight from Maryland (blog article Hobson’s choice) after attending the sixteen annual Patent Cooperation Treaty Advisory Group Working Breakfast sponsored by the World Intellectual Property Organization. The answer follows. Continue reading “Tenterhooks, or how the Hobson’s choice came out”