Category: Industrial Designs

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How to do a toteboard search?

Hello readers and colleagues.  Within a few weeks, based on numbers reported by you, we will be posting the 2022 toteboards.  This includes the following:

    • The Eighth Annual utility patent toteboard.
    • The Eleventh Annual design patent toteboard.
    • The Fourth Annual  plant patent toteboard.

For ten years now, it has been quite easy to do a search in the US Patent Full-Text Database to get numbers that you could send in for the toteboards.  But now in 2023, such searches are nearly impossible.  This blog article tries to help a little with doing such searches in 2023.  Continue reading “How to do a toteboard search?”

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Get your numbers in for the 2022 toteboards

(Update:  I have collected some information from readers in this blog article about how to try to do toteboard searches in the new and poorly designed Patent Public Search system.)

Hello colleagues.   It is time to get your numbers in for the 2022 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 on Tuesday, January 24, 2023.    Please don’t dawdle with this.  Please just hand in your numbers and be done with it.

The 2022 toteboards will get published in February of 2023.  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 before Tuesday, January 24, 2023!

You can see the past toteboards, including the 2021 toteboards, here.

    • To hand in your numbers for the Eighth Annual utility patent toteboard, click here.
    • To hand in your numbers for the Eighth Annual trademark toteboard, click here.
    • To hand in your numbers for the Eleventh Annual design patent toteboard, click here.
    • To hand in your numbers for the Fourth Annual  plant patent toteboard, click here.
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USPTO responses will be timely on Tuesday, January 3

Monday, January 2 will be a federal holiday in the District of Columbia.  This means the USPTO will be closed on Monday, January 2.  This means that any response or action that would have been due at the USPTO on Saturday, December 31,  or Sunday, January 1, or Monday, January 2 will be timely if carried out on Tuesday, January 3.

The US Postal Service will likewise be closed on Monday, January 2.

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USPTO responses will be timely on Tuesday, December 27

Monday, December 26 will be a federal holiday in the District of Columbia.  This means the USPTO will be closed on Monday, December 26.  This means that any response or action that would have been due at the USPTO on Saturday, December 24,  or Sunday, December 25, or Monday, December 26 will be timely if carried out on Tuesday, December 27.

The US Postal Service will likewise be closed on Monday, December 26.

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US filers and filing at WIPO and daylight saving time

Keep in mind that most locations in the US will turn off daylight saving time today (November 6, 2022), but today is not the day that Switzerland will turn off daylight saving time.  (Switzerland turned off DST a week ago.)

Those who are filing documents at the International Bureau — documents that need a same-day filing date — should check to make sure they know what time it is in Switzerland as of today.

The main point here is that for a US filer, everything is now “back to normal”.  Whatever time zone offset a US filer is accustomed to between his or her time zone and Geneva, that offset is back to normal.

ePCT will tell you what time it is in Switzerland.

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How often do you check the Systems Status page?

click to enlarge

If you regularly make use of TEAS or PAIR or Patentcenter or EFS-Web, you probably find yourself checking the USPTO Systems Status and Availability web page (screen shot at right) from time to time.

Wouldn’t it be nice if somehow you could be notified automatically when that web page changes?  Well, now you can be notified automatically, if you choose to participate in a beta test of my new change-detection system.  Continue reading “How often do you check the Systems Status page?”