Category: Patents

Users of EFS-Web are accustomed to the notion that any time we e-file anything, once we have finished we can click a button to send an email.  In my office the routine is that the filer clicks the button to send an email message to the docket desk so that they know what got e-filed.

The alpha testing of Patentcenter began in autumn of 2018.  From the beginning of Patentcenter, there were some e-filing paths that would finish with no email button.  There were only a few of us alpha testers and we all brought this up to the USPTO.  There really needed to be an email button! 

There are some e-filing paths in Patentcenter that do lead to a place where the user can click a “send email” button.  But even now in 2020 there are e-filing paths in Patentcenter that lead to a place where the “send email” button is conspicuously absent.

One of USPTO’s stated design goals is “if you can do it in EFS-Web we will make it so that you can do it in Patentcenter”.  This goal has not been met for the “send email” button.  One hopes that eventually USPTO will get Patentcenter fixed so that there is a “send email” button every time the filer has successfully e-filed anything.

(Another of USPTO’s stated design goals is “if you can do it in Private PAIR we will make it so that you can do it in Patentcenter”.)

Is it a problem for you that some of the e-filing paths in Patentcenter finish with no “send email” button?  Please post a comment below.  (This is ticket number CP6.)

(Update:  See update at the end of the blog article.)

There’s a very important database at the USPTO called Supplemental Content or SCORE.  If you look up any particular patent application in PAIR or in Patentcenter, what gets listed for SCORE for that patent application should be absolutely identical.  But strikingly often, they are not at all identical. 

For example here is a case that has three drawings files in SCORE according to PAIR, but according to Patentcenter this same case supposedly has nothing in SCORE.

SCORE is very important.  This is where your high quality drawings end up in your design patent applications.  This is where your sequence listings end up.

I have dropped an email to ebc@uspto.gov with the application number, asking EBC to please open a ticket to get this fixed so that Patentcenter will show my SCORE files.

Have you checked all of your cases that have SCORE content?  Do they show your SCORE content in Patentcenter?  If not, you might want to get in touch with the EBC to get it fixed.  And please post a comment below.

Update:  I posted this on a Sunday, yesterday.  The missing Score material included two files that I e-filed yesterday, as well as a file that had been in the case from more than a year earlier.  The screen shot above shows that the file from more than a year ago was missing in Score in Patentcenter as of yesterday.  About two hours after I posted this blog article, without any explanation from the USPTO, the Score file from a year ago suddenly for the first time became visible in Patencenter, along with the new newly e-filed files.

It looks as though it is possible to figure out how many utility patent applications have been filed in Patentcenter thus far during alpha testing and beta testing. Continue reading “How many utility applications have been filed in Patentcenter thus far?”

(Updated May 12, 2020.  USPTO has fixed this bug, thus clearing trouble ticket CP8.)

Until this week the Patentcenter system was in a controlled beta test, accessible to only a very limited number of beta testers.  This week USPTO made the choice to open the beta testing to everybody.  This week I also launched the Patentcenter listserv, an email discussion group for users of Patentcenter.  (To find out more or to subscribe, click here.)   Listserv members have already solved a coding error that USPTO made in Patentcenter in the display of reel and frame numbers.

The way this started was that alert listserv member Shannon Vieau noticed that if you look at a reel and frame number for a patent application in PAIR, and if you look at the same patent application in Patentcenter, the reel and frame numbers don’t match.  Prompted by Shannon’s posting, I looked up a few of my own applications, and they all likewise failed to match.  I picked one that was a published case.  For that case, the frame number is the same in the two places — 366.  But in PAIR the reel number is 048299 while in Patentcenter the reel number is 17237.  I posted the actual reel and frame numbers in this blog article.  

At this point alert listserv member Richard Schafer wrote:

Guess what you get if you add 17237 to 48299: 65536. That just can’t be a coincidence. I haven’t checked any of my cases, but I’ll bet they’re all like that, suggesting some weird piece of bad handling of a 16-bit integer value. How that could pass any level of testing of the code, I can’t imagine.

65536 is one of those really interesting numbers for a person who does a lot of computer programming.  It is 2¹⁶.    

Richard then looked up some of his own cases in PAIR and in Patentcenter, and here was his report:

I just confirmed my suspicion with two of my applications. The Patent Center reel number and the PAIR reel number always add up to 65536. That’s just hilariously broken.

At this point alert listserv member and experienced computer programmer Neil Ormos identified how USPTO can fix this coding mistake:

What a great catch! Someone at the PTO owes you a bug bounty!

That kind of error is fairly common. Someone writes the field as an unsigned int and then reads it back as a signed int, or uses sprintf(“%d”) when they should have used sprintf(“%u”). Happens all the time.

“Beta” testing is great, no? You just harness the customer as free labor, and they stand in line to volunteer!

So anyway the coding fix has now been posted here.  It will be interesting to see how many days it takes USPTO to correct the coding error in Patentcenter.  (This is trouble ticket number CP8, cleared May 12, 2020.)

Recently the USPTO opened up access to Patentcenter to all users.  (Previously it was open only to certain alpha and beta testers.)  This prompted me to set up a new listserv for Patentcenter users (to learn more or to subscribe, click here).  Alert listserv member Shannon Vieau raised a fascinating issue namely that the reel and frame numbers listed for recorded assignments in Patentcenter often do not match those listed for recorded assignments in PAIR.  Prompted by her listserv posting (thank you!) I looked up one of our cases where in PAIR it says what you see above.

Meanwhile in Patentcenter it says what you see at right.  Yeah.  The frame number is the same in the two places — 366.  But in PAIR the reel number is 048299 while in Patentcenter the reel number is 17237.  One of them is clearly wrong.

Which one is correct?  The answer is, Patentcenter is wrong.  PAIR is correct.  Shannon reported this to the EBC today.  It will be interesting to see how long it takes for this to get fixed.

(Update:  I am astonished and disappointed to see that the USPTO developers made this exact same mistake four years later, in Trademark Center.  See blog article.)

(Update:  it took more than six months from when we reported the bug, but USPTO did finally fix it.  See blog article.)

When you are e-filing a new utility patent application in EFS-Web, one of the ways to make the priority claim is by means of a web-based Application Data Sheet.  There’s a place in EFS-Web where you can say that you are adding a priority claim, and it gives you a drop-down menu of patent offices where your priority application might have been filed.

USPTO has had users alpha-testing and beta-testing its new system called Patentcenter, which will eventually replace EFS-Web.  Patentcenter has a similar web-based ADS function that allows you to make a priority claim when you are filing a new patent application.  When you use this function, eventually you reach this drop-down menu of patent offices where your priority application might have been filed.  Can you guess which well-known foreign patent office is missing from this drop-down list in Patentcenter? Continue reading “Can’t claim priority in Patentcenter?”

New users of Patentcenter will learn soon enough that there is a way that Patentcenter breaks USPTO’s own rules.

If there’s anything that patent practitioners learn the hard way, it is that the USPTO systems ruin any PDF that contains color or gray scale when the PDF gets loaded into IFW.  I documented this back in 2006 as you can see here.  USPTO recognized this (EFS-Web guidelines) at least as long ago as 2008:

Text of other colors [other than black] may not convert to image properly, resulting in unreadable or invisible text.

So imagine how disappointing it is to see that the designers of Patentcenter have set it up so that every single form generated by Patentcenter for loading into IFW is filled with color and gray scale!  Which violates USPTO’s own rules for images to be e-filed in IFW. Continue reading “Patentcenter creates and loads color and gray scale into IFW”

Are you using Patentcenter?  Are you planning to use Patentcenter now that it is open for all filers (blog article)?  If you have not already done so, you should join the Patentcenter listserv.  This is an email discussion group for users of USPTO’s Patentcenter system.  To join the listserv, click here.  Continue reading “Join the new Patentcenter listserv”