Why would anyone convert a US provisional application to a non-provisional?

There is a procedure for converting a US provisional patent application into a non-provisional patent application.  The practitioner who follows this procedure (instead of simply filing a non-provisional with a domestic benefit claim) will put the client in the position of incurring an extra government fee and losing some patent term.

So why would anyone ever carry out this procedure?  There is a real-life situation where this might be the clever thing to do, as I learned the other day from a smart member of the EFS-Web listserv.

Continue reading “Why would anyone convert a US provisional application to a non-provisional?”

A smart thing that USPTO customers should do now

(Please also see a followup blog article here.)

Those who make use of Private PAIR and EFS-Web are accustomed to USPTO’s very clunky way of accomplishing two-factor authentication, namely the poorly designed Entrust Java Applet (EJA).  USPTO has now formally announced (see excerpt at right from a slide in a USPTO webinar yesterday) that it will replace EJA with a much more user-friendly approach.  The goals of today’s blog article are:

  • describe the new system, and
  • explain what you can do right now to be ready for it well in advance.

Continue reading “A smart thing that USPTO customers should do now”

Reprise of PDX-DAS webinar

The May 8, 2018 webinar on this topic was well received.  But many people missed the webinar and asked if it will be repeated.  So we are presenting this webinar again, with updates.  For example:

  • On June 1, 2018 the Denmark patent office will become an Accessing Office in the DAS system
  • On June 1, 2018 the Netherlands patent office will become a member of the DAS system

This will be a live webinar, not a replay of a recording. Continue reading “Reprise of PDX-DAS webinar”