“Increase usability for sponsored accounts with large amounts of customer numbers” means what?

It will be recalled that with less than two hours to go before the close of business on the day that the USPTO had resolutely determined that it was going to shut down the trusted PAIR and EFS-Web systems, the USPTO blinked.  (See blog article.) The USPTO decided to postpone the shutdown by four business days, from November 8 to November 15.  What excuses did the USPTO provide for this blink?  One of the excuses was that the USPTO proposed, during those four days, to “increase usability for sponsored accounts with large amounts of customer numbers”.  What exactly does this word salad mean?  Continue reading ““Increase usability for sponsored accounts with large amounts of customer numbers” means what?”

Listervs have been migrated to a new server redux

(Update:  be sure to look at Richard Schafer’s comment below, about how to whitelist in Microsoft’s system.)

Hello to the members of the various listservs hosted by Oppedahl Patent Law Firm LLC.   Five days ago I migrated the listservs to a new server.  For many members of the listservs, it looks like this migration has gone largely unnoticed after a few test postings of yesterday and today.  But for some members, this migration has not worked out well, because of the behavior of their email service provider, which is called “Outlook” from Microsoft.  Continue reading “Listervs have been migrated to a new server redux”

A small blink from the USPTO

(Update:  see this blog article for a guess as to what “increase usability for sponsored accounts with large amounts of customer numbers” means. )

For the past seven weeks, and up until just a few hours ago, the USPTO was unwavering in its stated resolve to shut down PAIR and EFS-Web at 11:59 PM tonight.  As recently as yesterday, when meeting with the National Association of Patent Practitioners, the Commissioner for Patents declined to agree to NAPP’s request to postpone the shutdown date (blog article).  Now, on the last possible day, with less than two hours to go before the close of business, the USPTO blinked.  Continue reading “A small blink from the USPTO”

NAPP met with USPTO about Patent Center yesterday

The last thing you heard from me about this was on Saturday, November 4, when I reported that the National Association of Patent Practitioners (NAPP) had been invited by the USPTO to attend a videoconference meeting about Patent Center.  The USPTO made this invitation after receiving NAPP’s October 31, 2023 letter to the USPTO asking that the USPTO’s planned shutdown of PAIR and EFS-Web be postponed.  The meeting was scheduled for 11AM yesterday (ET).  Now NAPP has posted a readout of the meeting on LinkedIn.  Continue reading “NAPP met with USPTO about Patent Center yesterday”

The most recent USPTO wrong-headedness with Patent Center

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I appreciate that the subject line does not narrow things down very much, given a seemingly limitless variety and number of ways that the USPTO has done wrong-headed things with Patent Center over the past five years of its development.  But here is a recent breathtakingly wrong-headed move by the USPTO that deserves particular comment — abruptly imposing upon all applicants an extremely disruptive and wholly unnecessary roadblock to the uploading of PDF files.   It makes Patent Center, which was already not easy to use given its many bugs, even harder to use.

Continue reading “The most recent USPTO wrong-headedness with Patent Center”

Listervs have been migrated to a new server

(Update:  Microsoft is behaving badly about this.  See blog article.)

Hello to the members of the various listservs hosted by Oppedahl Patent Law Firm LLC.   Yesterday I migrated the listservs to a new server.  For many members of the listservs, hopefully this will go largely unnoticed after a few test postings of yesterday and today.  But for some members, this will be extra work and trouble.  I am sorry about this.

Here are details.

Whitelisting.  Previously the listservs were on a server at IP address 162.255.116.157.  Now the listservs are on a server at IP address 66.29.132.148.  Maybe you had previously set up a whitelisting entry in your email system to allow messages from 162.255.116.157 to reach you.  If so, you may find that now you need to set up a whitelisting entry in your email system to allow messages from 66.29.132.148 to reach you.  (Update:  Microsoft is behaving badly about this.  See blog article.)

Member password.  This migration caused a reset of your password for your subscription to the listserv.   To get your password figured out again, you might find it necessary to go to one of the eleven links below (for the listserv that you need to reset the password in) and click on the link, and follow the process for resetting your password.

Digest numbering.  If you are a digest subscriber, you will see that this migration has reset the digest numbering to volume 1.

I am sorry about the extra work and trouble.

Links to user information pages for the listservs.  The listservs affected by this server migration include:

USPTO quietly fixes Patent Center bug CP31

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(Update:  shortly after this blog post, a nice person at the USPTO got in touch.)

Today, the USPTO quietly fixed Patent Center bug CP31.  For more than three years, this bug was a trap for the unwary user (blog article, June 23, 2020).  The user who made the mistake of checking for outgoing correspondence using Patent Center rather than PAIR ran the risk of malpractice in two distinct ways:

    • If the user were to check for outgoing correspondence on a Monday or a Tuesday, the Patent Center report would always state that there is no outgoing correspondence even if, in truth, there was outgoing correspondence.
    • On other days of the week, on average the Patent Center report would be missing about 11% of the user’s outgoing correspondence.

Continue reading “USPTO quietly fixes Patent Center bug CP31”