Category: Industrial Designs

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New leadership for AIPLA Industrial Designs Committee

Richard Stockton
Richard Stockton

It’s October, which means it’s time for the AIPLA annual meeting.

And it’s at the AIPLA annual meeting that AIPLA committees get new leadership.  Each committee position (chair, vice-chair) normally has a term of two years.  So in a particular October a two-year term might be half way through or might be beginning.  About half of AIPLA’s committees thus change leadership in a particular October.

This year is the year for the Industrial Designs Committee to change leadership.  The news is that the new chair of the Industrial Designs Committee is Richard Stockton of Banner & Witcoff, and the new vice-chair is James Aquilina of Design IP.

James Aquilina
James Aquilina

Richard and James are each very active in the world of design patents, having filed and prosecuted many design patent applications.  Richard’s firm, Banner & Witcoff, has ranked in first place in the 2012 US Design Patent Toteboard, the 2013 US Design Patent Toteboard, the 2014 US Design Patent Toteboard, and the 2015 US Design Patent Toteboard.

This coming two years will be an important time for industrial designs.  New countries, including China, are likely to join the Hague Agreement.  Important court cases, including a Supreme Court case in Apple v. Samsung, are likely to be decided.  It will be good to have Richard’s and James’s leadership.

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For the next week, an extra hour available for WIPO filings

dstExperienced filers in the Patent Cooperation Treaty, Madrid Protocol, and Hague Agreement systems (utility patents, trademarks, and industrial designs) know that it is important to keep always in mind when midnight will arrive in Geneva, where WIPO is located.

For a PCT filer, this matters because to get a same-day filing date, a PCT application being filed in RO/IB will need to be filed by 4 PM Mountain Time.  The same is true for filing an Article 19 amendment.  The same is true if you are using ePCT to file a Demand and Article 34 amendment.

For a Madrid filer, this matters among other things for the payment of decade renewal fees.

For a Hague filer, this matters for the the filing of an international design application at the IB.

The point of today’s post is that starting today, and for the next week, you get an extra hour to get a same-day filing date.  The reason is that Europe and the US carry out their daylight saving time transitions on different days that are a week apart.

This means that you could file as late as 5 PM Mountain Time (instead of the usual 4 PM) and still get a same-day filing date.

Things will return to normal a week from now, on November 6, 2016.

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How did you hear about Design Day 2016?

I was honored to have an opportunity to play a small role in the planning for Design Day 2016.  So I have reviewed the attendee evaluations just now.  One of the evaluation questions was “how did you hear about Design Day 2016?”  And I am delighted to be able to report that some of the respondents said they heard about it from this very blog, the Ant-Like Persistence blog.

 

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Patent assignments now visible on the web!

The USPTO did a nice thing today.  As of today, youAOTW can receive a PDF copy of a recorded patent assignment!

Until now, the only way to get a copy of a patent assignment was to place an order with the Order Entry Management System and pay $25.  And then wait a couple of weeks for the copy to show up in the mail.

But now, thanks to alert reader Rick Neifeld, I have learned that you can get it for free, and you can get it instantly.  The way to make this work requires the user to learn a few steps, but once you learn it, it’s easy.

A first thing to appreciate is that you can’t start with the “assignments” tab of PAIR.  You need to go to Assignments on the Web (Patents).  Then do a search.  You can search on any of the usual things — application number, patent number, whatever.  Eventually you will figure out the reel and frame number that you care about.  Click on the reel and frame number to get to a page that is specific to your reel and frame number.  You will then see a page like the screen shot above (click on the image to see it bigger).  Look for a barely visible icon just to the right of the word “details” (marked with a green rectangle), and click on it.  What will pop up is a PDF copy of the recordation cover letter and the assignment itself.

This is a welcome development at the USPTO!  USPTO deserves kudos for providing this helpful service.

 

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Excellent guidance on Hague design drawings

When you get ready to file an international design application (a “Hague application”) you have no choice but to try to figure out what to do about drawings, with the goal of (hopefully) satisfying the requirements of each Office that you are planning to designate.

In the early days of Hague, most Offices that belonged to Hague were “registration” Offices, meaning that they checked formalities but did not do much in the way of substantive examination.  But in recent times more and more Offices that have recently joined are Offices that do carry out some amount of substantive examination.  Perhaps the Office in which an applicant would be most likely to run into trouble would be the USPTO.

And indeed it is true that some Hague applications that designate the US have been running into problems because of the drawings.

WIPO, together with various of the designated Offices, have developed guidelines for applicants.  You can see the guidelines here.

These guidelines should be studied by any applicant that is planning to designate Hungary, Japan, Kyrgystan, South Korea, Moldova, Romania, Syria, or the US.

Keep in mind that for a US applicant, one option offered by the Hague Agreement is that the US applicant could designate the US.  (I call this a “hairpin turn”.)  Such a US applicant should likewise study these guidelines.

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Uploading JPG files to your Hague case

As patent practitioners have known for many years, if you were to try to upload a JPG file into EFS-Web, the system would puke on the file.

Until now, as I will explain.  It requires a bit of background.  In November of 2014 the USPTO answered a question that had been on everyone’s lips for many months, namely “What will the series code be for Hague cases?”  The answer turned out to be 35.  A year and a half passed, and in February of 2015 the USPTO assigned the first application number to a Hague case.  (It was 35/500001.)   What many people might not know is that if the application that you open in EFS-Web happens to be a “35” case, you can upload a JPG file.  Here is a screen shot that shows this:
hague03

 

What is the problem for which this new capability is the solution? Continue reading “Uploading JPG files to your Hague case”

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USPTO grants first-ever design patent from a Hague application

The USPTO has granted the first-ever US design patent from an international design (Hague) application.

The international design application was filed pro se on May 13, 2015 by a German company called Schwan-Stabilo Cosmetics GmbH & Co. KG. The application was filed directly at the International Bureau and it designated Korea and the US.  It did not claim priority from any earlier application.

The IB published the application on June 5, 2015 and the USPTO received the application from the IB on that day. The USPTO gave application number 35/500,001 to the application.

The USPTO mailed a Filing Receipt on July 7, 2015. The case got assigned to an Examiner on October 6, 2015 and the Examiner allowed the case eleven days later. The USPTO sent the Notice of Allowance to the IB on October 20, 2015. The applicant paid the Issue Fee directly to the IB. The OB sent the Issue Fee to the USPTO on November 30, 2015.

USPTO issued the patent on April 26, 2016 as US Patent Number Des. 754922.  You can see it here.

No Assignment has been recorded for this application.  No IDS got filed in this application.  The application was never touched by US patent counsel.