Category: Industrial Designs

(The brief answer is, most employees of the USPTO who work from home will not need to do anything differently in the near term, and instead will have to await “separate guidance.”)

On his first day at work, one of the executive orders signed by Trump was an order (see it here) aiming to terminate “remote work arrangements”.  The order, dated January 20, 2025, says:

Heads of all departments and agencies in the executive branch of Government shall, as soon as practicable, take all necessary steps to terminate remote work arrangements and require employees to return to work in-person at their respective duty stations on a full-time basis, provided that the department and agency heads shall make exemptions they deem necessary.  Continue reading “How Trump’s “Return to in-person work” order affects the USPTO”

Hello readers.  It is now 2025 and this means it is time to get in your numbers for the 2024 toteboards:

• • Thirteenth Annual US design patent toteboard
  • Tenth Annual US utility patent toteboard
  • Sixth Annual US plant patent toteboard
  • Tenth Annual US trademark toteboard

The goal is to recognize and rank law firms in the US based upon the numbers of US design patents, US utility patents, US plant patents, and US trademark registrations each firm obtained for clients in 2024.

The questionnaires will close on Friday, February 14, 2025.

Every year after I post the results of the toteboards, I get sad emails from firms that want me to accept their numbers late.  This would, of course, typically result in kicking other firms down in the rankings — other firms that got their numbers in on time.  Please help to reduce the number of such sad emails that I will receive this year.  Maybe you are a person at your firm who is responsible for getting these numbers in.  If so, please get your numbers in!  Otherwise, please forward this blog posting to somebody at your firm to make sure that somebody at your firm gets the numbers in for your firm.

You can see the previous toteboards here, going back to the earliest toteboard in 2012.

The mail room at the USPTO is, politely stated, a striking example of a service failure.  Continue reading “USPTO mail room works unacceptably slowly”

Yes, I realize the subject line doesn’t actually narrow things down very much, in the sense that many USPTO announcements are poorly worded in one way or another.  But this one is breathtaking in the extremity of its poor wording.  See if you can catch it:

Planned maintenance
Customer Interaction Platform Contact Center Transition
The USPTO will transition our contact centers to a new platform beginning at midnight ET on Monday, October 28 and ending at midnight ET on Tuesday, October 29.
Users may experience longer wait times during the transition period.

(emphasis in original.)  Continue reading “poorly worded USPTO announcement”

I am pleased to present the 2023 toteboards:

• • Twelfth annual US Design Patent Toteboard
  • Ninth annual US Trademark Registration Toteboard
  • Ninth annual US Utility Patent Toteboard
  • Fifth annual US Plant Patent Toteboard

Three days from now will be the end of your opportunity to get your numbers in for the 2023 Toteboards (blog article).

So far we have the following results:

• • For the Trademark toteboard, we have 27 responses accounting for 6321 trademark registrations.
  • For the US plant patent toteboard, we have 5 responses accounting for 137 US plant patents.
  • For the US design patent toteboard, we have 20 responses accounting for 2111 US design patents.
  • For the US utility patent toteboard, we have 22 responses accounting for 11531 US utility patents.

If you have not already gotten your numbers in, now is the time to do it (blog article).

Hello colleagues.   It is time to get your numbers in for the 2023 toteboards.  The toteboards have a goal of recognizing the intellectual property firms that filed the most US utility patent applications, filed the most US design patent applications, filed the most US plant patent applications, and filed the most US trademark applications, and saw them through to issuance and registration.

The submission forms will close toward the end of the day on Friday, February 9, 2024.    Please don’t dawdle with this.  Please just hand in your numbers and be done with it.

The 2023 toteboards will get published in February of 2024.  Every year, we publish the toteboards, and after that, some firm comes in begging and pleading to hand in its numbers late.  Please don’t do that.  Please hand in your numbers no later than Friday, February 9, 2024!

How to do toteboard searches.

You can see the past toteboards, including the 2022 toteboards, here.

• • To hand in your numbers for the Ninth Annual utility patent toteboard, click here.
  • To hand in your numbers for the Ninth Annual trademark toteboard, click here.
  • To hand in your numbers for the Twelfth Annual design patent toteboard, click here.
  • To hand in your numbers for the Fifth Annual plant patent toteboard, click here.