Category: Industrial Designs

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Latest news on Mexico and Hague Agreement

These days it is pretty interesting to keep track of the growth of the Hague Agreement (the international filing system for industrial designs).  Since a year ago there had been whispers (blog article October 21, 2017) that Mexico was going to join the Hague Agreement Real Soon Now.  And then came the new successor NAFTA agreement (see blog article of October 2, 2018) which sets forth that Mexico must join Hague by no later than the date of entry into force of the new NAFTA agreement.

Richard Stockton
Richard Stockton

Anyway just now I was delighted to hear from Rich Stockton, who is chair of the AIPLA Industrial Designs Committee, about this particular topic.  He reports that he met recently with some higher-up folks at the Mexican patent office.  They told him that they expect the Mexican legislature will approve the implementing legislation during the current session and that no other major legislative steps remain other than depositing the instrument of accession (and then waiting the requisite three months for the accession to take effect).

He thus tells me that it looks to him as though Mexico will officially join the Hague system in the first few months of 2019.

This is, of course welcome news, and the accession of Mexico to the Hague system will be a welcome development.

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Another fax bites the dust

More and more fax machines and fax numbers are biting the dust.  Here are the most recent announcements (see October 2018 PCT Newsletter):

  • The Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand has just announced that it has discontinued use of its fax machine.
  • The Industrial Property Office of Slovakia has announced that with effect from January 14, 2019, it will discontinue the use of its fax machine.

These follow previous announcements from some months ago, for example:

  • On April 1, 2018, WIPO disconnected its fax machine for Madrid-related communications.
  • Oppedahl Patent Law Firm LLC stopped posting a fax number on July 21, 2018.
  • Some months ago WIPO announced that it is considering discontinuing its fax machines for PCT-related communications from the end of 2018.
  • Some month ago WIPO proposed to discontinue the use of facsimile communications for Hague Agreement communications from January 1, 2019.
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USPTO joins DAS as a Depositing Office for designs

There is welcome news that on October 1, 2018, USPTO joined DAS as a Depositing Office for purposes of designs.

This is welcome progress with respect to the ID5 (the five highest volume industrial design Offices).  When people say “ID5”, they mean:

  • CNIPA (the Chinese intellectual property office, formerly known as SIPO)
  • EUIPO (formerly known as OHIM)
  • JPO (the Japanese patent office)
  • KIPO (the Korean intellectual property office)
  • USPTO

At this point, so far as the members of the ID5 are concerned, the progress is as follows:

  • CNIPA is a Depositing Office and Accessing Office for patents and utility models and designs
  • EUIPO unfortunately does not yet belong to DAS.  It is hoped that EUIPO will join DAS Real Soon Now.
  • JPO is a Depositing Office with respect to patents and utility models.  JPO is an Accessing Office with respect to patents, utility models, and designs.
  • KIPO is a Depositing Office with respect to patents and utility models and designs (but see note below).
  • USPTO is a Depositing Office and Accessing Office for patents and designs (but see note below).

The note is that USPTO and KIPO have a legacy relationship in the PDX system.  And unfortunately the design of PDX is that it trumps DAS.  If two Offices have a PDX relationship, this blocks any DAS relationship.  So what needs to happen now is that USPTO needs to pull the plug on its PDX relationship with KIPO.  I blogged about this here.

And of course JPO needs to become a Depositing Office for designs.

And EUIPO needs to become a member of DAS.

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How the “new, safer and simpler log-in” works at the USPTO?

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I’ve received many questions from people who have tried to use the “new, safer and simpler log-in” for PAIR and EFS-Web.  (See the big blue footer that now appears whenever you try to use PAIR.)  Here’s what one very experienced USPTO customer asked me:

Last week I set up two-factor authentication with MyUSPTO, following the USPTO’s instructions.  Recently the big blue banner started appearing and I figured I had better start using the newer, safer and simpler log-in.  So today I needed to e-file form SB39 in one of my cases.  This is my time to try out the newer, safer and simpler log-in, right?  I logged in at the USPTO web site using my MyUSPTO user ID and password.  So far, so good.  Over on the right side, it says “File patents with EFS Web”.  So now that I have logged in, I click there and I reach the “unregistered e-filers” page.  There are some links but none of them will get me to the “registered” EFS-Web.  Finally I give up on MyUSPTO and I click on the old-fashioned link on the upper left and I click on “eFile (registered)” and that got me to the familiar old Entrust Java Applet page.  I e-filed my form SB39.

When that was done I went back to the MyUSPTO home page again hoping to figure out how I might have gotten to the “registered” EFS-Web page.  What did I miss?

I’ll explain. Continue reading “How the “new, safer and simpler log-in” works at the USPTO?”

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Things you need to do today if you are a USPTO patent practitioner

You’ve received the scary emails from USPTO, and the scary pop-up messages in PAIR, saying that “you will need to use a newer, safer, and simpler log-in … beginning in October 2018”.

There are some things that you really need to do now (if you have not already done so) if you are a USPTO patent practitioner.  Each human being in your office needs to get a MyUSPTO user ID and password (if he or she has not already done so).  Each human being in your office needs to set up TOTP with that user ID (if he or she has not already done so).  And you need to attend some upcoming webinars in which USPTO will try to explain all of this very clearly.

I’ll explain. Continue reading “Things you need to do today if you are a USPTO patent practitioner”

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Industrial Designs and more test cars

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It’s test car time of year again for Summit County, Colorado.  Here are ten of the approximately sixty camouflaged cars swarming around the streets and highways and the mountains of Colorado this week.  They are testing next year’s car models to see how they perform in the thin air at an elevation of 9000 feet (2700 meters) or higher.

It’s not only that camouflage wrap is laid onto the cars.  There are also fake body panels and bumps and contours taped into place under the camouflage wrap.

This is all to protect the industrial designs — postponing for as long as possible the day when a competitor will get to see exactly what next year’s models look like.

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Winding down PDX – an action step for the USPTO

This past Saturday was a big day for DAS for US design filers and for US utility patent filers, in cases that claim priority from Chinese design and utility applications.  The big development was USPTO “pulling the plug” on PDX with respect to the Chinese patent office (blog article on utility patents and blog article on design patents).

The previous “pulling the plug” for PDX was last November 2017 when USPTO pulled the plug on PDX for Japan (blog article).

Now there is more plug-pulling to do.  Eventually PDX will be a thing of the past. Continue reading “Winding down PDX – an action step for the USPTO”