Category: Patents

Posted on

Dontcha just hate “see attached letter”?

There are a lot of annoying things about an email that says “see attached letter”.  I’ll basically just be ranting in this posting.  Feel free to skip it.

I should emphasize first that if somebody is paying my firm to do work, I will cheerfully receive any and all “attached letters” that they wish to send.  The non-US patent firm that has sent me dozens of patent applications to be filed in the US can send any email in whatever way they want to sent it.

What I am talking about is the non-US intellectual property firms, and the service providers (annuity services for example) that are receiving money from my firm.  These are the people I am complaining about when I say I am annoyed by an email that says “see attached letter”.

Why am I annoyed by this?

Continue reading “Dontcha just hate “see attached letter”?”

Posted on

Thinking about calling a US patent application a continuation-in-part

From time to time I encounter a client or foreign colleague that asks whether some soon-to-be-filed US patent application ought to be termed a CIP (continuation-in-part) of a previous patent application by the same applicant.  The way I look at it, this used to be a good idea but nowadays is rarely if ever a good idea.  I hope that folks will post comments with their thoughts about this.

Continue reading “Thinking about calling a US patent application a continuation-in-part”

Posted on

Make plans to attend “PCT at the EPO”

As a reminder, the European Patent Office will present “PCT at the EPO”, a two-day educational program.  This will be Wednesday and Thepoursday, October 1 and 2 at the EPO office at the Hague.  One session is “National Phase at the USPTO”.  The speakers for that session will be Michael Neas of the USPTO and myself.

This is a unique educational program with a faculty composed of patent office presenters and private practitioners.

The first day of the event will conclude with a panel discussion on key developments in the PCT (I am one of the panel members), followed by a cocktail reception and a networking dinner.

To find out more about this two-day program, or to register, click here.

 

Posted on

USPTO needs to implement SSL and PFS on all servers

The USPTO needs to implement SSL and PFS on all of its public-facing servers.  In plain language all of the servers at USPTO need to use “https://” rather than “https://”.  Why?  Because apparently there are eavesdroppers.  See this report from a member of the E-Trademarks listserv:

The company TMFeatures really has figured out how to decipher what we are searching, and I am very concerned.  I am working on a very sensitive global launch for a client, and I received an email this afternoon from this company which makes it clear that it knows exactly what I have pulled up on the public USPTO TESS database.  How can that happen?   If a company is able to compile a list of the marks we have pulled up, it would not be hard to make a very good case of competitive intelligence available for the right price.   I assume this would be much worse for single industry in-house trademark counsel than us outside people, but still very concerning.

Continue reading “USPTO needs to implement SSL and PFS on all servers”

Posted on

EFS-Web broken again

USPTO has had another system crash.  EFS-Web is broken again.  It crashed at about 6AM this morning, Saturday, August 9.

Practitioners will recall the big USPTO system crash on Wednesday, May 14 (blog) in which EFS-Web was broken but also EFS-Web Contingency was broken.

In today’s system crash, EFS-Web is broken but EFS-Web Contingency is still working.  So today’s crash at the USPTO is not quite as bad as the May 14 crash.

The USPTO maintains a USPTO Systems Status and Availability page which supposedly provides “the latest information on operating status and availability of Online Business Systems.”  The USPTO failed that promise again today.  At no time during this six-hour outage did the SSAA page give any acknowledgement that EFS-Web had crashed.

What are the workarounds when EFS-Web crashes like this?

Continue reading “EFS-Web broken again”

Posted on

Today is the last day to file certain PTA correction requests

I have not encountered very many patent practitioners that noticed the Federal Register notice of May 15, 2014 entitled “Revisions To Implement the Patent Term Adjustment Provisions of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act Technical Corrections Act”.  This notice established today, July 31, 2014, as the last day on which you can file a certain type of request for adjustment of patent term.

Continue reading “Today is the last day to file certain PTA correction requests”

Posted on

Astonishingly good system integration at WIPO

Just now I e-filed a PCT patent application in the Receiving Office of the International Bureau.  I did this using WIPO’s ePCT system.  And a mere sixty seconds later, I was able to click and see a draft of the front page of what will eventually be the eighteen-month publication, all the way down to the date (February 5, 2015) that it will probably be published.  I am astonished at the level of integration among WIPO’s various systems that must have been accomplished to make this possible.   Indeed there are half a dozen good things about this e-filing experience that deserve comment.

Continue reading “Astonishingly good system integration at WIPO”

Posted on

Sign up before July 16 for the 18th annual AIPLA PCT Seminar

It’s July again, which means it is time for another AIPLA PCT Seminar.  This will be the 18th annual offering of the Seminar.  The Seminar will take place in Denver, Colorado on Monday and Tuesday July 21 and 22, and it will be offered a second time in Arlington, Virginia on Thursday and Friday July 24 and 25.  I will be among the faculty of this Seminar.  If the Seminar will take place a week from now, why is it so important to sign up before July 16?

Continue reading “Sign up before July 16 for the 18th annual AIPLA PCT Seminar”

Posted on

USPTO mishandling QPIDS

I expect that some readers of this blog have made use of QPIDS, the Quick Path Information Disclosure Statement system.  The goal of QPIDS is to reduce the number of times that an applicant has to pay an RCE fee to get an IDS considered.  Unfortunately in recent times USPTO has been mishandling the QPIDS system.  The result is that often an applicant is stuck paying even more money than the applicant would have had to pay if the applicant had simply filed an RCE instead of a QPIDS.

Continue reading “USPTO mishandling QPIDS”