There are many things that Palm reveals to people inside of the USPTO, that PAIR and Patentcenter do not reveal to applicants. Here are some of those things that Patentcenter should reveal to applicants. Continue reading “Patentcenter should reveal application status”
Validations in Patentcenter
Broadly speaking, Patentcenter does extremely poorly on validations. The designers of Patentcenter would merely need to have looked at ePCT to see how to do validations correctly. Here are examples of validations and how to do them right and how to fail to do them, and how to do them wrong. Continue reading “Validations in Patentcenter”
Get rid of or correct or improve the “boy who cried wolf” nag message about paying fees
Get rid of or correct or improve the “boy who cried wolf” nag message in Patentcenter about paying fees.
This is Feature Request FR25. Continue reading “Get rid of or correct or improve the “boy who cried wolf” nag message about paying fees”
Patentcenter should check uploaded ADS for a signature
When an ADS turns out to be unsigned, or not correctly signed, or not signed by a practitioner, it leads to a cascade of problems. It often takes months or a lot of money, or both, to fix the problems. It would be trivially easy for Patentcenter to check an uploaded computer-readable Form PTO/AIA/14 (Application Data Sheet) such as we see at right, for a signature. But Patentcenter does not do so.
Patentcenter should check an uploaded ADS for a signature and should display warnings as needed. This is Feature Request FR24. Continue reading “Patentcenter should check uploaded ADS for a signature”
Patentcenter should validate the “non-inventor applicant” excuse field
When a filer uploads Form PTO/AIA/14 (Application Data Sheet), Patentcenter should carry out validations. As mentioned here, Patentcenter should validate priority claims against DAS. This blog article points out that Patentcenter should validate the “non-inventor applicant” excuse field.
This is Feature Request FR23.
Continue reading “Patentcenter should validate the “non-inventor applicant” excuse field”
Consequences of an unsigned (or incorrectly signed) ADS
What are the consequences of filing a US patent application with an Application Data Sheet (“ADS”) that was unsigned, or incorrectly signed? Many, many bad things can flow from this. The bad things can cascade and it can take months of tedious step-by-step filings to get things straightened out. Continue reading “Consequences of an unsigned (or incorrectly signed) ADS”
Patentcenter should validate priority claims against DAS
Getting a priority claim wrong in a patent application is a serious matter. There’s a super-simple thing that ePCT does to prevent many ways of getting priority claims wrong, that Patentcenter fails to do. Of course Patentcenter should do the same validation that ePCT does — cross-checking against DAS. I’ll explain. Continue reading “Patentcenter should validate priority claims against DAS”
Patentcenter’s “sort by patent number” does not work correctly
The coders who designed the Patentcenter workbench made a mistake in the “sort by patent number” function. This is listserv trouble ticket number CP33. Continue reading “Patentcenter’s “sort by patent number” does not work correctly”
How your reptile brain reacts to an animated image of a throbber
I bet I got your attention with that title! Nope, I think it is extremely unlikely that whatever the title made you think of has anything at all to do with the feature of USPTO’s Patentcenter that this article is going to talk about. Continue reading “How your reptile brain reacts to an animated image of a throbber”
An encouraging step with Patentcenter
Readers will recall my recent sense of discouragement with USPTO’s handling of its Patentcenter rollout. But yesterday there was an encouraging event. I think there is some reason for guarded optimism that USPTO may do better going forward in its handling of its Patentcenter rollout. Continue reading “An encouraging step with Patentcenter”