It will be recalled (see my blog post of February 2, 2018) that the search fee for ISA/KR will increase by about 7% for filers in RO/US. The increase will happen on April 1, 2018.
This offers an opportunity to save some money on PCT filing fees. A US filer who is considering filing a PCT application (and who plans to pick ISA/KR) on or after April 1 might want to consider filing it on or before March 31. This would permit the filer to pay the cheaper search fee.
It’s only a few years ago that I started paying attention to the prospect of a client obtaining a utility model instead of an ordinary utility patent. Until recently I knew of only a small number of Offices where utility models are available. But recently I happened upon a resource on the web site of WIPO that lists no fewer than fifty-nine Offices in which a utility model may be obtained. Continue reading “What are the places where your client can get utility models?”
USPTO used to “peg” its patent examination backlog at 108 months (nine years). Then in about 2014 (see blog article) the USPTO changed the “peg” to 60 months (five years). Now in 2018 the USPTO has changed the “peg” to 30 months (two and a half years).
Continue reading “Identifying “pegged” art units at the USPTO”
Will you be in Seattle on May 22, 2018? Maybe for the annual meeting of the International Trademark Association (INTA)? Then please attend the fourteen annual Meet the Bloggers. Be there or be square!
MTB XIV will be Tuesday, May 22, 2018 from 8PM to 10PM at Garage Billiards, 1130 Broadway, Seattle, WA 98122. Read about it here and on the TTABlog and on the iPelton Blog.
See also the e-Trademarks listserv reception which will take place the previous day.
I am delighted to report a favorable experience today with a DO/EO/US person. By this I mean a USPTO person handling entry into the US national phase from a PCT patent application. Continue reading “A DO/EO/US person is responsive!”
The 2017 US Toteboards have been published. These toteboards have the goal of listing the firms that obtained US design patents, US trademark registrations, and US utility patents for clients. You can see:
The goal of this toteboard is to list the firms that helped clients to obtain US plant patents in 2017. It will rank the firms according to the number of US plant patents obtained. Respondents are asked to report only US plant patents for which the firm is listed on the front page of the granted patent. Please respond by Thursday, March 22, 2018.
You can see the previous Toteboards here.
To send in your numbers for the 2017 US Plant Patent tote board, click here.
See the Office of Personnel Management announcement which says:
FEDERAL OFFICES in the Washington, DC area are CLOSED. Emergency and telework-ready employees required to work must follow their agency’s policies, including written telework agreements.
I wrote:
The USPTO is closed today, Friday, March 2, 2018.
Normally at this time of year such a closure would be due to a dusting of snow. But the reason for the closure is “high wind”.
Oh, and at the risk of stating the obvious, this means that any response or action that would have been due today will be timely if filed by this coming Monday, March 5, 2018.
But people are telling me they think the USPTO is actually open today. If this is true, then maybe the resetting of response dates to Monday won’t happen after all.
I will investigate further.
A year ago I published the 2016 US Utility Patent Toteboard, and a year before that the 2015 US Utility Patent Toteboard. Now it’s time to finalize and publish the 2017 Utility Patent Toteboard.
The goal of this toteboard is to list the firms that helped clients to obtain US utility patents in 2017. It will rank the firms according to the number of US utility patents obtained. Respondents are asked to report only US utility patents for which the firm is listed on the front page of the granted patent. Please respond by Thursday, March 8, 2018.
You can see the previous Toteboards here.
To respond to be listed in the US Utility Patent Tote Board, click here.
It’s also time for the sixth annual US Design Patent Tote Board. To learn how to respond to be listed in that tote board, click here.
It’s also time for the 2017 US Trademark Registration Toteboard. To learn how to respond to be listed in that tote board, click here.
The search fee paid by US filers for the Korean International Searching Authority (for the first invention) will increase on April 1, 2018 from $1134 to $1218, an increase of about seven percent.
The nice inexpensive fee at ISA/KR for the second through n-th inventions will, however, remain unchanged at a mere ₩225000 (about $208 at today’s exchange rate). Continue reading “Korean search fee to increase April 1”
