Folks, the USPTO is going to pull the plug on the PDX system on January 1, 2022. I blogged about this here. This was in part due to the efforts of The Thirty-One Patent Practitioners. You can read about the pulling-of-the-plug on the USPTO web site here. In almost every way this is very good news:
- You will be able to set a tripwire to let you know the moment the USPTO tries to retrieve the electronic certified copy of the EP priority document.
- A log will be available to you that keeps a history of the USPTO’s retrieval of the electronic certified copy of the EP priority document.
- You will be able to independently confirm ahead of time that the electronic certified copy of the EP priority document is indeed available to the USPTO, so as to eliminate any question about the ability of the USPTO say that it supposedly cannot retrieve the electronic certified copy.
But there is one way that this is a potential trap for the unwary, and that is the purpose of this blog article. You should probably forward this blog article to every patent practitioner that you know who ever files a US patent application that claims priority from an EP patent application. Continue reading “Trap for the unwary effective January 1, 2022 – EPO and USPTO and priority documents”