Yes, that patent office. The one where Albert Einstein worked as a patent examiner for a while before becoming famous. The Swiss patent office has has joined the ever-growing list of patent offices (previous blog post) that have officially stopped receiving faxes. You can see that Office’s January 2, 2020 update in the PCT Applicant’s Guide in which that Office notifies that it is pulling the plug on its fax machine.
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Today is the day for Samoa and the Patent Cooperation Treaty
The PCT enters into force today for Samoa.
Samoa already belongs to Madrid Protocol. The Hague Agreement also enters into force for Samoa today. Samoa has thus achieved the trifecta for international filing mechanisms.
The two-letter code for Samoa is “WS”.
Get your numbers in for the 2019 Tote Boards
It’s that time of year again. Get your numbers in if you want your firm to be listed in:
- the Eighth Annual US Design Patent Top Filers Tote Board
- the Fifth Annual US Trademark Registration Top Filers Tote Board
- the Fifth Annual US Utility Patent Top Filers Tote Board
- the Third Annual US Plant Patent Top Filers Tote Board
These Tote Boards will rank the top patent and trademark firms for carrying out filings in 2019 in these categories. The 2019 Tote Boards will join the previous fifteen Tote Boards which go back as far as 2012.
The closing date for getting in your numbers will be Friday, January 31, 2020.
Every year, some firm misses out by failing to get its numbers in by the closing date. Don’t be that firm! Get your numbers in early. Click here for the:
- response form for the 2019 (eighth annual) US design patent top filers tote board
- response form for the 2019 (fifth annual) US trademark registration top filers tote board
- response form for the 2019 (fifth annual) US utility patent top filers tote board
- response form for the 2019 (third annual) US plant patent top filers tote board
January 1, 2020 is a holiday at the USPTO
Wednesday, January 1, 2020 will be a federal holiday in the District of Columbia. This means the USPTO will be closed. This means that any action that would be due at the USPTO on January 1 will be timely if it is done by Thursday, January 2, 2020.
“Fewer”, not “less”
Update: it took more than two years, but the USPTO has just recently cleared this trouble ticket.
There’s a bit of bad grammar in Patentcenter. If you are using Patentcenter to look at a patent application, the number of inventors might exceed four. In that case you might click “show all inventors” to see all of the inventors. Then you would see a Patentcenter screen listing all of the inventors, an example of which appears at right.
You might then want to return to the normal screen that does not show all of the inventors. For this, the designers of Patentcenter chose the words “Show less inventors” which is wrong. A similar mistake is often made in stores where an overhead sign might say that the express checkout lane is for those with “ten or less items”. The correct wording would be “ten or fewer items”. You can see explanations of this here and here.
The correct way to say this in Patentcenter would, of course, be “Show fewer inventors”.
It will be interesting to see how long it takes the folks at USPTO to correct this mistake. (This is trouble ticket number CP10.) (Update. It took more than two years.)
What these three things have in common?
Here are images showing three things, one of which is the two-factor authentication box on the USPTO web site. That box used to say “This is a computer that I trust and use regularly” (blog article, October 8, 2019) but recently the USPTO changed the wording of this box. Now it says “Remember this browser and do not ask again for 24 hours.” Although USPTO changed the wording in the box, I do not think USPTO changed anything about the actual function of the box. This prompts me to invite the reader to post a comment below if you can think of something that is similar about these three things.
December 24 and 25 are holidays at the USPTO
It was already known (blog post) that Wednesday, December 25, 2019 will be a federal holiday in the District of Columbia. Today’s news is that in addition, by order of the President, the federal government will be closed on Tuesday, December 24. This means the USPTO will be closed not only on December 25 but also on December 24. This means that any action that would be due at the USPTO on December 24 or 25 will be timely if it is done by Thursday, December 26, 2019.
New book: PCT Forms and PCT Docketing
Update: The book is now finalized and you can see it here and here.
I’m working on a new book. It’s entitled Oppedahl on PCT Forms and PCT Docketing. Right now it is in what I might term beta testing. The book is version 0.8. I am providing copies of the book to some folks free of charge in the hopes that they will take a look at the book and maybe make suggestions or corrections. Then I will finalize the book and release it for general sale. Continue reading “New book: PCT Forms and PCT Docketing”
December 25 is a holiday at the USPTO
Wednesday, December 25, 2019 will be a federal holiday in the District of Columbia. This means the USPTO will be closed. This means that any action that would be due at the USPTO on December 25 will be timely if it is done by Thursday, December 26, 2019.