Category: Industrial Designs

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EUIPO will join DAS on July 11, 2020

I am delighted to report that the European Union Intellectual Property Office will begin participating in the DAS system as a Depositing Office for industrial designs starting on July 11, 2020.  This comes after Eighty-four practitioners and applicants asked EUIPO to join DAS.  

For more information see the Notice at the WIPO DAS web site.

By the way, if you are glad to see this result, maybe take a look at the list of the eighty-four signers, and if you know one or more of them, maybe drop them a “thank you”.

 

 

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Today is the day for Mexico and the Hague system

Yes, today is the big day for Mexico and the Hague system.  In my blog article of March 6, 2020 I told you this was imminent.  And now is the day — design filers in Mexico can file international design applications using the Hague system.  And design filers in many countries around the world can designate Mexico in their international design applications.  You can see the announcement on the WIPO web site here.

Mexico joined the Patent Cooperation Treaty on January 1, 1995 and joined the Madrid Protocol on February 19, 2013.  Thus, with today’s participation Mexico achieves the trifecta of participation in all three international e-filing systems (patents, trademarks, and designs). 

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All USPTO systems are broken

(Updated to include link to USPTO’s 411 page.)

It seems that all USPTO systems are broken.

Members of the EFS-Web listserv, the Patentcenter listserv, and the e-Trademarks listserv (each of which you should join if you have not done so already) are reporting that all USPTO systems are broken just now.  

Here is the link to USPTO’s 411 page:  https://www.uspto.gov/blog/system411/ .  Right now it says:

USPTO is experiencing an enterprise wide issue. Users are reporting being unable to connect to the USPTO network and receiving the error “revocation status of the smartcard could not be determined”. Support groups are troubleshooting this situation, but other impacts include share drive mapping issues, SharePoint access issues, and other applications may have impacts as a result of this situation. Users are advised not to contact the Service Desk at this time. Due to the High Call Volume that the OCIO Service Desk is experiencing, there are reports of some users receiving busy signals when calling.

 

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Monday, May 25 is a holiday at the USPTO

Monday, Monday, 25, 2020 will be a federal holiday in the District of Columbia.  This means the USPTO will be closed.  This means that any action that would be due at the USPTO on May 25 will be timely if it is done by Tuesday, May 26, 2020.

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Patentcenter is broken for Hague cases

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(This is Patentcenter trouble ticket number CP22.)

(This has still not been fixed as of June 10.  I phoned the EBC to open another trouble ticket.  The new ticket number is 1-696205867.)

I was quite surprised today to be reminded that a defect in Patentcenter that I had reported to the USPTO back in December of 2019 has still not been corrected.  The defect is that it is impossible, in Patentcenter, to e-file any follow-on submission in any 35-series design patent application.  You can see this in the screen shot at right.  Continue reading “Patentcenter is broken for Hague cases”

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The letter to EUIPO got delivered

It will be recalled that on Wednesday, April 1, 2020, eighty-four design practitioners and applicants wrote a letter to Christian Archambeau, the Executive Director of the European Union Intellectual Property Office.  The letter said:

We write to you as design practitioners and applicants for protection of industrial designs. Many of the undersigned are members of the Industrial Designs Listserv, a community of design practitioners.

We are writing to request that the European Union Intellectual Property Office become a participating office in the WIPO Digital Access Service (DAS).

We thank you for your consideration of this request.

The letter was sent by Priority Mail Express International service, and would normally have been delivered in Alicante a day or two later.  The envelope sat for seventeen days in a postal facility in San Francisco before being put on an airplane headed for Spain.  

It got delivered Friday, April 24, 2020 at 1:49 PM.  You can track the courier package here and you can see a PDF scan of the letter here.  

Hopefully we will soon hear back from Executive Director Archambeau with good news about EUIPO’s imminent participation in the DAS system.

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How many design applications have been filed in Patentcenter?

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The alpha testing of Patentcenter began in about August of 2018.  My firm was among the first of the alpha testers of Patentcenter.   The other day I realized that it’s easy to figure out how much of the testing my firm has done.  I was fascinated to see that my firm has filed about half of all of the design applications that anybody has filed in Patentcenter.  Continue reading “How many design applications have been filed in Patentcenter?”

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DAS and Designs – slides and recording

Hello faithful readers.  USPTO’s Design Day 2020 was set for April 23, 2020.  I was going to present at Design Day on the topic of DAS and Designs:

Practical tips on using WIPO’s Digital Access Service (DAS), which is growing in popularity for design practitioners.

Then it got canceled — you know why it got canceled.  So I made a plan to present my material instead as a webinar.  The webinar took place on March 31, 2020.  There was a lot of very helpful audience participation and I think the webinar went well as a consequence.

You can download the slides here and you can view a recording of the webinar here.

Please post comments below.