Category: PCT

When you file a PCT application in a Receiving Office other than the RO/IB, the Receiving Office will consider whether it is “competent” to handle that particular PCT application.  If the RO determines that it is non-competent, it will transfer the application to the RO/IB for further processing.  (The application does not lose its filing date;  the RO/IB will honor the filing date that had been given to the application by the first RO.)

Each RO determines its own conditions for “competency”.  In the case of RO/US, the two ways that the RO might decide that it lacks competency as to a particular PCT application are:

• • no applicant identified in the Request is either a resident or citizen of the US, or
  • the application is not in the English language.

Either of these situations will prompt RO/US to transfer a particular PCT application to the RO/IB.

But what, the long-suffering blog reader may ask at this point, does all of this have to do with “lorem ipsum“?  Yes, those are today’s fun questions — the interesting question “what is lorem ipsum?” and the even more interesting question “what does lorem ipsum have to do with Receiving Office procedure under the Patent Cooperation Treaty?” Continue reading “It turns out there’s a name for this: lorem ipsum”

On October 1, 2018, the search fee for ISA/AU for filers in the RO/US will drop from $1722 to $1631.

If you were already planning to select IP Australia as your international searching authority, and if you are able to postpone your filing until October 1, you have an opportunity to save $91.

One month remains, folks, to sign up for my PCT seminar that will take place in Silicon Valley, California, on October 16-18, 2018.

This will be a unique learning opportunity for practitioners and paralegals alike who wish to learn about the Patent Cooperation Treaty, or who wish to refresh their knowledge of the PCT, or who wish to learn how to use ePCT, or who wish to bring themselves up to date about PCT developments. Continue reading “One month remaining to sign up for PCT seminar in Silicon Valley”

As of September 7, 2018, Uganda is now a 30-month country.  Said differently, the time limit for DO/UG is now 30 months. Continue reading “Uganda is now a 30-month country”

Recently I mailed post cards to nearly all of the people in Silicon Valley who are admitted to practice before the USPTO.  This was about 4000 post cards.

By  now, about 400 of these post cards have been returned to sender as undeliverable.   Ten percent!

For each of these mailing addresses, it means the practitioner’s address with the Office of Enrollment and Discipline is undeliverable.  As I flip quickly through this stack of several hundred returned cards, I see names of very well known law firms and very well known high-tech companies.

So the point of this post is that if you did not receive one of these post cards, you might want to look in the the OED database to see if your mailing address with the OED is out of date.

If you are located outside of Silicon Valley and you know someone who is a registered practitioner in Silicon Valley, you might want to ask them if they did not receive the post card, in which case they might want to look in the OED database to see if they need to update their address.

I’ve started a podcast series about the Patent Cooperation Treaty. Thus far I have recorded three episodes. I’m guessing it will take about forty episodes to cover all of the things that I want to cover. I’m making these podcasts available free of charge. To make this work I have set up a podcast server which you can see here. Continue reading “A new podcast series about the Patent Cooperation Treaty”

If your PCT clients sometimes pick ISA/KR (the Korean Intellectual Property Office or KIPO), then you might like to learn about a very handy new way to communicate with ISA/KR.

The handy new way to communicate with ISA/KR is through ePCT, as I will describe. Continue reading “A very handy new way to communicate with ISA/KR”

The search fee paid in US dollars by US filers for a PCT search carried out by the EPO dropped today.  I first reported this to you on July 20, 2018 (blog article).

Previously $2207, it is now $2095.

As I reported to you on July 20, 2018 (blog article), the search fee paid in US dollars by US filers for a PCT search carried out by the EPO will drop on September 1, 2018.

Presently $2207, it will soon drop to $2095.

This means that if you are getting ready to file a PCT application, and if you are a US filer, and if you are planning to select EPO as your ISA, and if you have the flexibility to postpone your filing date to September 1, 2018, you can save some money by doing so.

As a reminder, if the application that you are trying to file happens to be a PCT application, consider filing it at RO/IB instead of RO/US.  In other words don’t try to use EFS-Web for filing your PCT application.  Use ePCT to e-file it directly at the IB.  Of course if the invention was made in the US, you will need an FFL (foreign filing license).  Maybe the FFL that you already received in your US priority application will cover the PCT application.  Also keep track of when it will be midnight in Switzerland (ePCT will tell you what time it is in Switzerland).

A chief benefit of using ePCT to e-file your PCT application in the RO/IB is that you will instantly be able to see what you just filed.  You can see the contents of your PCT application in ePCT (just like what you would usually do in Private PAIR).