Category: Patents

(See followup article here.)

Yes the USPTO managed to get its systems more or less functioning by December 28 after the massive crash that ran from December 22 to 27.  But even now, two weeks after the crash, applicants are still affected by it daily.

As one example, there was a response to an Office Action that we had hoped to e-file in EFS-Web on December 22.  No luck there, the system crash made it impossible to e-file anything then or for some days thereafter.  So in this particular case we fax-filed the response.  We did that on December 26.

More than a week has passed — five business days — and there is no hint or suggestion in PAIR that we filed a response.  Nothing is visible in IFW.  Nothing is listed in the Transaction History.

The Office Action to which we responded was one that said “do X and I will allow the case”.  The response which we fax-filed does X.  This response, if only it were visible to the Examiner, would permit the Examiner to dispose of the case.  It would permit our client to receive a Notice of Allowance and to pay the Issue Fee.

But I’d guess that ten times more papers got fax-filed during the period of December 22-27 than would typically have been fax-filed during a normal six-day period.  In our experience it normally takes the USPTO a week or more to get a fax-filed document into IFW.  I imagine that it will take six weeks or longer for USPTO to work its way out of the massive fax backlog that USPTO now faces.

For many years it has been possible to recycle ADS bibliographic (“bib”) data from a parent case into a child case.  To do this, you find the old ADS and export the bib data in XML format.  Then you import the XML file into a new ADS.  Often you will find that before you import the XML file into the new ADS, you need to edit the XML file using Notepad.

USPTO has just announced a new EFS-Web functionality with the catchy name Enhanced Initial Web-based Application Data Sheet.  I’ll call it EIWADS.

Continue reading “Recycling ADS data from a parent case”

On November 22 I offered suggestions (see blog post here) as to how USPTO could do better in receiving updated bibliographic data.  I also blogged about what was at that time the Best Practice for updating bib data.

On December 21, USPTO announced its new Corrected Web-based Application Data Sheet functionality.  I will describe it in this post.  I think it will probably be a Best Practice to use this functionality (for the applications for which it may be used) rather than legacy practice.

Continue reading “USPTO’s new “Corrected Web-based Application Data Sheet””

On December 12 I blogged about a problem namely that when USPTO revised its computer-readable ADS form, USPTO broke the XML import feature.

Alert reader Bruce Young tipped me off to a response from the USPTO which you may see here.   USPTO says:

Due to a change in the Adobe software used to create PDF fillable forms, the “Import Data” function is unavailable in the new ADS PDF fillable form.  We are working with the vendor to troubleshoot this problem and apologize for any inconvenience.

Hopefully in future when USPTO (or its vendor) tinkers with the ADS form, part of the acceptance testing will include looking to see whether the tinkering has broken the XML export or XML import feature.

While they are at it, I will mention that for some six years now, I have been gently but persistently asking the USPTO to please publish a DTD (document type definition) that pins down the USPTO as to the names of the XML tags and the tree structure of the XML for the ADS.

In any normal XML environment, the party establishing an XML import or export function publishes a DTD.  For six years now, USPTO has foot-dragged and has not done so for the ADS.  Maybe this activity of USPTO and its vendor will be a good moment for USPTO to reveal the DTD.

There have been several reports on the EFS-Web listserv that EFS-Web is puking on its own PDF forms.  The chief trouble area is the Application Data Sheet form.  The user carefully creates a computer-readable ADS and uploads it to EFS-Web.  EFS-Web then pukes on the form, stating (falsely) that it is not really a PDF file.

The workaround is to print the ADS to PDF using CutePDF.  Then that PDF file can be uploaded to EFS-Web.  EFS-Web will gripe that it is not an official USPTO form but will at least permit the e-filing task to be completed.

In the old days I would have characterized this as a Big Problem because in the old days, EFS-Web actually auto-loaded the bibliogaphic data into Palm (and from there into PAIR).  But (as I blogged here) USPTO has been gradually chipping away at this and now almost none of the bib data gets auto-loaded.  So you might just as well upload a CutePDF version into EFS-Web.

EFS-Web is working but … don’t get your hopes up that you will be able to see results in PAIR.

Not only that, don’t get your hopes up that you will even be able to see your Acknowledgment Receipts.

We filed one new patent application this morning at 7:27 AM Mountain Time.  It’s now 1:45 PM Mountain Time, meaning that more than six hours have passed.  And despite the passage of six hours, the newly filed application is not visible in PAIR.  And indeed when we click on “View last 40 eFiling Acknowledgement Receipts” we are not permitted to view the ack receipt for this filing of six hours ago.  Instead the ack receipt has the dreaded “In Progress” legend instead of a “View” link.

This would have been a really good day to staff the EBC.  But I am pretty sure we won’t be able to reach anyone at the EBC until tomorrow (Monday) morning.  I would have asked the EBC to “open a ticket” to get our case into PAIR, this case that we filed more than six hours ago.

We filed another new patent application this morning at 11:29 AM.  That’s more than two hours ago.  Still not visible in PAIR.  Still no ack receipt, only the “In Progress” message.

But anyway yes EFS-Web does seem more or less to be working.

If you do an EFS-Web filing today and if you later actually see your results in Private PAIR, I would be grateful if you can post a comment about it.

For the past eighteen hours or so, Private PAIR had been broken.  (Before that, it was working for a while but with no IFW.)

Now Private PAIR is up again.  This time it has IFW.

Hopefully Private PAIR will continue to be working and hopefully IFW will continue to be working.

As I reported earlier today, EFS-Web is also back in service.  Hopefully it will likewise continue to be working.

 

EFS-Web seems to be back online today, December 27.

As we all recall, EFS-Web crashed on the afternoon of Tuesday, December 22.  In my case I was in the middle of trying to file a design patent application when it crashed.  Fortunately I had been doing frequent saved submissions during that project.  Today when I logged in at EFS-Web, my saved submission was there.  I completed the submission and clicked submit and paid the fees.  As far as I know, it worked.

I say “as far as I know” because unfortunately Private PAIR is not working.  So if you e-file a new application in EFS-Web, you are not able to check in PAIR to make sure it came through okay.

But anyway it is good news that USPTO seems to have gotten EFS-Web back online.

It’s perhaps too soon to assume that EFS-Web will continue to be working.  Private PAIR worked for about a day (albeit without an IFW tab) and then stopped working.  And now Public PAIR is working with an IFW tab.

USPTO seems to have gotten IFW back online, although only within Public PAIR.

Private PAIR worked for a little while a couple of days ago, but has not been functioning for the past 18 hours or so and is not functioning just now.