W.C. Fields famously joked about a sweepstakes in which first prize was a week in Philadelphia … and second prize was two weeks in Philadelphia. Well, here the second prize is listening to me drone on via Youtube for 5¾ hours about the Patent Cooperation Treaty. Free of charge, other than the risk of nodding off. Continue reading “5¾ hours of Patent Cooperation Treaty!”
Brexit and .EU Internet domain names
Alert blog reader Greg McLemore tipped me off to yet another sort of IP/tech aspect of Brexit that I had not thought about — Internet domain names that end in “.EU”.
It turns out that the registry in charge of dot EU Internet domain names had some months ago set a policy that if and when the UK ceases to be part of European Union, this would start a two-month time period at the end of which any domain registrant whose contact address is not in the EU (a code phrase for any registrant whose contact address is in the UK) would lose the domain name.
Presumably most domain name owners in this situation would do whatever is needed to adopt some sort of contact address that is within the (post-Brexit) European Union.
The most recent development, which you can see here, is that these plans regarding dot EU domain names will be put on hold for the time being.
If I were a UK-domiciled registration of a dot EU domain name, I would be watching this very closely.
USPTO can now publish a new Federal Register notice about ePCT
For many years the Best Practice for filing in RO/US has been to use a ZIP file as the way to provide the PCT Request to EFS-Web. Originally the only way create the ZIP file was PCT-SAFE. Three years ago WIPO announced that ePCT would be available starting on June 1, 2016 as a second way to create the ZIP file. Shortly after this announcement, USPTO published a Federal Register notice that put a cloud over the use of ePCT in this way. WIPO has made a change to ePCT that obviates concerns raised in that notice. Hopefully now the USPTO will publish a “cloud removal” Federal Register notice that expressly cites the previous notice and that expressly removes the cloud.
In this blog article I explain that at this point ePCT is now without question the Best Practice for creating the ZIP file. And I offer proposed language for a “cloud removal” Federal Register notice. Continue reading “USPTO can now publish a new Federal Register notice about ePCT”
The fourth annual US Trademark Toteboard is out
It is my honor to post the fourth annual US Trademark Toteboard. This toteboard lists the firms that obtained the most US trademark registrations in 2018.
You can see the other 2018 toteboards here.
The fourth annual US Utility Patent Toteboard is out
It is my honor to post the fourth annual US Utility Patent Toteboard. This toteboard lists the firms that obtained the most US utility patents in 2018.
You can see the other 2018 toteboards here.
e-filing at WIPO — back to normal
For the past three weeks the situation for e-filing at WIPO 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. But today the people in Switzerland have turned their clocks forward. 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 three weeks the answer was 5PM.)
IP firm user guide to Afex
In several recent posts I blogged about Afex.com, a provider of international wire transfer services. By now we have migrated nearly all of our international wire transfer activity away from previous vendors and over to Afex. The user documentation for Afex is, said charitably, extremely limited. The documentation seems to assume that the reader is already an extremely experienced user of legacy wire transfer services, such that the reader only needs to learn a few things about Afex to be able to do all of the things that the reader already knew how to do with a legacy wire transfer service. What’s more, the documentation does almost nothing to explain how you would actually use the system if you are an intellectual property firm.
If you already have service set up with some wire transfer service provider, it would be very tempting to stick with what you know and are familiar with. But as I mentioned here and here, many of the legacy service providers really charge quite a lot, both in bank fees and in currency exchange rate fees, compared with what Afex charges. So it might be smart to start using Afex. The problem being that the documentation is so poor.
With this in mind, I have written a user guide that draws upon our experience using Afex.com to pay foreign IP firms and foreign IP offices (e.g. WIPO, KIPO) and using Afex.com as a way to receive bank wires from foreign IP firms. You can see it here. Please post comments and suggestions below.
Configuring your VOIP devices for secure connections
I recently blogged (here) that one of the best VOIP service providers, VOIP.MS, recently added a beta-test feature permitting high quality encryption in the connection between your telephone equipment and the VOIP.MS equipment. The connection is called a “SIP trunk”, which has two ends — one end is at VOIP.MS’s server and the other end is at your own equipment, which might be a PBX, a desktop telephone, an analog telephone adapter, or a VOIP app that runs on your smart phone.
It is super easy to turn on the encryption at the server end — it is a matter of one mouse click at the web page of VOIP.MS.
Turning on the encryption at your own equipment might be a bit more difficult. The main point of today’s post is that I have written a set of knowledge base articles explaining how to do this with each of three VOIP devices, namely:
The seventh annual US Design Patent Toteboard is out
It is my honor to post the seventh annual US Design Patent Toteboard. This toteboard lists the firms that obtained the most US design patents in 2018.
As I look at this list, I see many firms which were doing design patent law long before it was trendy.
First place went to Banner & Witcoff. Banner & Witcoff has been in first place for seven years in a row (since the very first US design patent toteboard).
Second place went to Birch, Stewart, Kolasch & Birch. Birch, Stewart has been in the top ten for the past six years.
(My firm was in nineteenth place.)
You can see the other 2018 toteboards here.
Who doesn’t know the difference between a patent and a trademark? USA Today, that’s who.
Today’s USA Today newspaper roasts a celebrity for getting a patent denied due to poor punctuation. The article is embarrassingly poorly written. Continue reading “Who doesn’t know the difference between a patent and a trademark? USA Today, that’s who.”