Category: Patents

Ever since March 16, 2013 there has been a profound asymmetry in the manner in which check-the-box mistakes could be corrected by the practitioner.  For more than three years now, it has been easy (according to USPTO’s rules) to correct a mistake if it happens in one direction, and impossible to correct the mistake if it happens in the opposite direction.  USPTO has now announced a policy that is intended to reduce this profound asymmetry. Continue reading “USPTO addresses asymmetry in the correction of check-the-box mistakes”

Now and again we will receive instructions from a client (or foreign patent firm) to incur no further expense in a particular patent application.  In such a patent application, what sometimes happens later is that we receive an Office Action.  This prompted me to share a few thoughts about whether the applicant should file an Express Abandonment in such a case.

Continue reading “Why aren’t there more express abandonments?”

The Post-Prosecution Pilot program at the USPTO (“P3”) is almost gone. Continue reading “P3 is almost gone”

A year ago I reported that USPTO’s then-new system for paying patent issues fees was a disappointment.  That then-new system was a web-based system in which the practitioner could provide issue information in character form.  The hope of course is that USPTO would auto-load the issue information into USPTO’s systems.  For example if the practitoner correctly typed the assignee name into the web-based system, then the hope is that the assignee name would be correctly spelled on the front page of the issued patent.  And similarly if the “attorney, agent or firm” information were correctly typed into the web-based system, then the hope is that the “attorney, agent or firm” information would be correctly spelled on the front page of the issued patent.

And as of a year ago, the disappointing news was that the USPTO was hand-keying this issue information into USPTO’s systems.  The result at that time for our office was a discouraging 20% error rate.

I had hoped that in the year that has passed since USPTO’s release of this web-based system for paying patent issue fees, USPTO would finally have gotten around to setting it up so that the issue information would auto-load into USPTO’s systems. Continue reading “After more than a year, USPTO still hand-keying patent issue information”

What one would hope is that the USPTO would send its Outgoing Correspondence Notifications promptly.

In our office we look closely at each OCN email closely.  We receive several of them each day from the USPTO, one for each of our customer numbers in which there has been outgoing correspondence from the USPTO.  One reason the OCNs are important is that they prompt us to set dockets in our docketing systems.  A second reason the OCNs are important is that we assign tasks to people within our office, to attend to the various items of outgoing correspondence.

Sometimes we have a file in which we are waiting anxiously for USPTO to do something or another, so that we can take some related action.   In such a file the OCN is an important trigger for us to take the related action.

What’s unfortunate is that in recent weeks we have run into many instances where, for a particular item of outgoing correspondence from the USPTO, its associated OCN is late.  Continue reading “Late Outgoing Correspondence Notifications from the USPTO”

The latest PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) results are in, and as usual the United States ranks embarrassingly poorly.  The every-three-years PISA test, administered to 15-year-olds all around the world, measures math, science, and reading skills.

As reported in The Economist, this time the US ranked fortieth in math, twenty-fifth in science, and twenty-fourth in reading.  Higher-ranking countries for math and science include Japan, Korea and China as well as most countries in Europe.

Fifteen years of PISA testing have gone by during which the US has ranked poorly again and again.  The hope that STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) training could improve in the US remains unfulfilled.

Money alone is not the answer.  Per-pupil spending in schools in the US is much higher than that in most of the higher-ranked countries, and yet the results are poorer.

What does work?  In the top-performing countries, teachers are treated as professionals and are given time to prepare lessons and learn from their peers. Their advancement is determined by results, not teachers’ unions.  In the top-performing countries, school culture and budgets recognize classroom accomplishments by students more than, say, sports accomplishments.

But of course educational achievement begins at home.  It might sound old-fashioned, but in the top-performing countries, parents tend to encourage their children to study hard and to do their homework.