Here is a countdown to the date (May 13) when the US will belong to the Hague Agreement.
USPTO closed Monday February 16
Just a reminder that the USPTO will be closed on Monday, February 16. This is Washington’s Birthday* which is a federal holiday.
Anything that you might need to do by February 16 to satisfy some USPTO due date may be postponed until Tuesday, February 17 and will still be timely.
The importance of May 13, 2015 for US design patent filers
May 13, 2015 is an extremely important day for US design patent filers. Why? Because if you are smart about May 13, you can get a US design patent with a fifteen-year patent term rather than a fourteen-year patent term.
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US makes more progress toward the Hague Agreement
The Hague Agreement is the international filing system for design protection that corresponds to the PCT filing system for international utility patent protection and the Madrid filing system for international trademark protection. The progress of the United States toward membership and participation in the Hague Agreement has been slow and at times tortuous. As I blogged here, President Clinton signed the treaty in 1999. Many years passed before the Senate ratified it in 2007. Congress needed to pass enabling legislation which finally happened in 2012. Next the USPTO needed to promulgate proposed Rules, which it did in 2013. The next important step was for the United States to deposit an “instrument of accession” to the Agreement with WIPO.
Interestingly somehow the United States and Japan managed to coordinate their efforts, and the two countries deposited their instruments of accession on the same day, Friday, February 13, 2015. You can see WIPO’s press release here. 
And at right is a photograph (courtesy of WIPO) showing the historic event. You can see US Ambassador Pamela Hamamoto handing the Instrument of Accession to WIPO Director General Francis Gurry.
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Results are in — the 2014 US Design Patent Toteboard
Yes, the results are in. The Ant-Like Persistence blog is delighted to be able to present the 2014 US Design Patent Toteboard. This toteboard lists the forty-three highest ranked firms according to the number of US design patents which they obtained for clients. One corporation also chose to respond and is listed in the toteboard. These filers between them obtained about 24% of all of the US design patents in 2014.
You can also see corresponding toteboards for 2013 and 2012.
Glass ¾ full — many firms have handed in their design patent numbers
Here are some of the firms which by now have sent in their US design patent numbers at this questionnaire.
- Pearne & Gordon LLP
- Warner Norcross & Judd LLP
- Sughrue Mion, PLLC
- Design IP
- QuickPatents
- G. White Patents
- Babcock IP, PLLC
- Muncy, Geissler, Olds & Lowe, P.C.
- Banner & Witcoff
- Jacobson Holman PLLC
- Knobbe Martens
- Novak Druce Connolly Bove + Quigg
- Michael J Brown Law Office
- RatnerPrestia
- Brown & Michaels
- Leason Ellis LLC
- Saidman DesignLaw Group
- McAndrews, Held & Malloy, Ltd.
- Leydig, Voit & Mayer
- Westerman, Hattori, Daniels & Adrian, LLP
- Andrus Intellectual Property Law, LLP
- Rader Fishman & Grauer PLLC
- Harness Dickey
- Crowell & Morning LLP
- Osha Liang LLP
- Cantor Colburn LLP
These firms between them obtained about one-sixth of all of the US design patents that were granted in 2014.
Firms missing from the design patent toteboard
We now have responses from more than two dozen law firms which between them have obtained about one-seventh of all of the US design patents that were granted in 2014. Conspicuous by their absence, however, are a few well-known firms that did quite a lot of US design patent work in 2014, including the following:
- Cantor Colburn
- Foley & Lardner
- Morgan Lewis
- Birch Stewart
- Sterne Kessler
- Kilpatrick
- Nixon Vanderhye
- Finnegan Henderson
- Christensen O’Connor
- Ladas & Parry
- Wolf Greenfield
- Oblon Spivak
- Sheridan Ross
If you know someone at one of these firms, you might drop them a note and let them know they have six days left to respond with their information. The toteboard will close on January 31 and the rankings will be posted in early February.
Free live audio program on design patent enforcement issues
Design patents are suddenly important — everybody gets that by now. There are a handful of practitioners who were active in the design patent area long before design patents became fashionable, and Chris Carani is one of that handful. This next Wednesday Chris will host a free of charge live audio program that you can and should attend if your schedule permits.
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Some of the firms that have not yet submitted their design patent numbers
About 23,000 US design patents issued last year. The firms that have thus far responded to be listed in the Design Patent Tote Board between them filed about 2300 design patents, or about ten percent of that total.
So as may be seen, there are still quite a few patent firms that have not yet reported their design patent totals. Here are some of the well-known patent firms that have not yet reported their design patent totals:
- Cantor Colburn
- Foley & Lardner
- Morgan Lewis
- Birch Stewart
- Sterne Kessler
- Kilpatrick
- Nixon Vanderhye
- Crowell & Moring
- Rader Fishman
- Westerman Hattori
- Finnegan Henderson
- Christensen O’Connor
- Harness Dickey
- Ladas & Parry
- Wolf Greenfield
- Leydig Voit
- Oblon Spivak
- Sheridan Ross
- McAndrews Held & Malloy
If you know somebody at one of these firms, I’d be grateful if you can pass along to them a link to this blog post, so that they can complete and submit the questionnaire. Submissions will close January 31 and the tote board will be published in February of 2015.
Most-read postings in “Ant-like Persistence” for 2014
The arrival of a new year prompts every blogger to look back to see which postings in the previous year reached a lot of eyeballs.
Well, by far the most-read posting for all of 2014 in Ant-like Persistence was “A little-known USPTO initiative to reduce the backlog“. This posting, dating from early April of 2014, might be of great interest to patent practitioners who missed the original posting.
In second place was “USPTO is closed today, Monday, March 17“. This was the posting that told readers that it was a snow day in Washington. It meant that anything that needed to be filed in the USPTO on Monday March 17 could be postponed until Tuesday March 18 and still be timely.
The people who subscribe to this blog are likely to hear of such USPTO closings in the future. So if you have not already done so, subscribe to the blog. And if you have a friend or colleague who would like to hear about it when the USPTO has a snow day, encourage them to subscribe to the blog.