Category: Patents

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Let’s complete a survey for the PCT people at WIPO

Hello dear readers.  The people at WIPO who handle the PCT system are hoping to do a better job for their users, and so they have posted a questionnaire.  If you make use of ePCT, or if you use the services of RO/IB, you can share your thoughts through this questionnnaire.  Here is the invitation:

Starting in March 2023, the RO/IB has been working as a Pilot Team on enhancing our customer services.  We need again your support to ensure that we meet your expectations. We also invite you to share your ideas to help us go further.  Please complete the survey below and feel free to forward it to anyone in your PCT community.  Please click here and start the survey. It will take around 2 minutes.

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Has your membership in a listserv been disabled due to “excessive bounces”?

(Updated November 25, 2023 to recognize that if your email service provider is bouncing the normal listserv postings, your email service provider may also have bounced the warning message that was sent to you about your email service provider bouncing the normal listserv postings.)

In recent days, dozens of members of our intellectual property listservs have received (or at least have been sent) email warnings that start like this:

Your membership in the mailing list <blah> has been disabled due to excessive bounces.  The last bounce received from you was dated <recent date>. You will not get any more messages from this list until you re-enable your membership. You will receive 2 more reminders like this before your membership in the list is deleted.

If you received such an email warning, this is because (a) you belong to one or more of our listservs, and (b) you selected Microsoft (outlook) to be your email service provider.   But of course another possibility is that you did not receive this warning email message, because your email service provider bounced the warning email message too.  What should you do next? Continue reading “Has your membership in a listserv been disabled due to “excessive bounces”?”

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Telling twelve thousand people about four free webinars

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The map at right shows, in real time, our progress in letting twelve thousand people learn that they have an opportunity to attend four free-of-charge webinars about PCT forms.  As you can see, some 1600 emails have been sent (light green shading) to people in Asia and Africa and eastern and central Europe.  Just now, emails are being sent (dark green shading) to people in west Africa and parts of Greenland.  Some 11000 emails are waiting to be sent to people in North and South America.  Why did these emails not get sent all at once?  Continue reading “Telling twelve thousand people about four free webinars”

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How many Patent Center bugs and missing features can one encounter in a single e-filing task?

Today I had to pay an Issue Fee.  Let’s see how many Patent Center bugs and missing features I encountered in a single e-filing session in Patent Center, trying to pay an Issue Fee. Try to guess how many bugs and missing features were encountered. Continue reading “How many Patent Center bugs and missing features can one encounter in a single e-filing task?”

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Patent Center is not ready, and PAIR cannot be shut down tonight

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Just now I logged in at Patent Center and tried to view my outgoing correspondence.  I was greeted with a big red error message saying Search Limit Reached.  This is bug number CP178.  I opened EBC ticket number 1-843318724.   EBC agent 50 checked with the Patent Center team and reported back that this is a feature, not a bug.  This feature blocks data mining, he explained.  Continue reading “Patent Center is not ready, and PAIR cannot be shut down tonight”

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Counting down to the USPTO’s shutdown of PAIR and EFS-Web

Readers will recall that originally the USPTO was firm in its commitment to a shutdown of PAIR and EFS-Web at 11:59 PM on November 7, 2023 (blog article).

Readers will also recall that with less than two hours remaining before the close of business on November 7, the USPTO blinked and did not shut down PAIR and EFS-Web that day (blog article).  Instead, the USPTO postponed the shutdown of PAIR and EFS-Web by four business days.  The shutdown got postponed to 11:59 PM today, November 14.

Yes, the USPTO has firmly stated today is the day that it will shut down PAIR and EFS-Web.  This will happen at 11:59 PM tonight.