Category: PCT

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ISA/IL search fee increases today

As I reported on May 5, 2017, the Israel Patent Office made plans to increase the search fee for US filers from $911 to $963.  The fee change takes effect today.

At the present time, very few US PCT filers pick ISA/IL.  So this fee increase will not affect very many US PCT filers.

Most US filers file their PCT applications in EFS-Web because most US filers use RO/US for their PCT filings.  EFS-Web was updated today to reflect this new fee amount.  So there is not much risk of a US filer accidentally paying the old (smaller) fee.

 

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Reluctant to migrate from PCT-SAFE to ePCT?

A colleague at a very well known patent firm asks this:

Some of our clients (a few very large, sophisticated patent clients) refuse to let us move from PCT-Safe to ePCT for their matters since they claim the ePCT servers are located outside the US and that, at a minimum, a foreign-filing license would first be required prior to filing.  Do you have any related experiences with clients?  If so, how did you address their concerns?

First let me offer a compliment to those companies.  It is really good that they think about the FFL issue.  A company (or a practitioner) that fails to pay attention to FFL issues can really run into trouble later. Continue reading “Reluctant to migrate from PCT-SAFE to ePCT?”

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ISA/IL search fee to increase on July 1, 2017

The Israel Patent Office presently charges a search fee of $911 for US filers.  On July 1, 2017 this fee will increase to $963.

At the present time, very few US PCT filers pick ISA/IL.  So this fee increase will not affect very many US PCT filers.

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ISA/RU search fee increases today

Today the search fee paid by a US filer for the Russian patent office as International Searching Authority increases from $449 to $482.  (I first reported this here on March 17, 2017.)

Filers who use EFS-Web to file in RO/US, or who use PCT-SAFE or ePCT to file in RO/IB, will not need to worry about getting this right.  Each of those e-filing systems has already been updated today to reflect the new fee.

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An opportunity to save money on a PCT search fee

As I mentioned in a blog post on March 17, the search fee that a a US PCT filer would pay for the Russian patent office will increase on May 1, 2017.  The search fee, presently $449, will increase to $482.

This offers an opportunity to save a little money.  If you are a US filer, and you were thinking about filing a PCT application in which you choose ISA/RU, and you were thinking of filing the PCT application on May 1, just file it instead a day early on April 30.  This will save $33 in fees.

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What does TYFNIL mean?

Recently in the Design Listserv a Paris Convention question arose.  The question was, under Article 4 of the Paris Convention, could a design application claim priority from an earlier utility application?  It’s a good question and if you have any thoughts about this, I urge you to join that listserv and share your thoughts.

But what prompts this blog article is the initialism “TYFNIL”.  (It is not an acronym.)  A listserv member pointed out that even if the Office examining the design application were to find nothing wrong with such a priority claim, the owner of the design protection would never really know for sure where they stood until TYFNIL.  What does that mean?   Continue reading “What does TYFNIL mean?”

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USPTO wrongly bouncing inventor declarations

Over on the EFS-Web listserv (the email discussion group for patent filers at the USPTO) there was an interesting discussion recently.  A number of USPTO customers (frequent patent filers at the USPTO) were talking about USPTO’s bad habit of bouncing inventor declarations that have nothing wrong with them.

It would not be so bad if USPTO were to do its bouncing promptly after the inventor declaration is filed.  In that case, if indeed there were actually something wrong with the inventor declaration, it would be a realistic goal to round up a fresh signature from the inventor.

Instead, the USPTO waits until allowance to mail the “Notice Requiring Inventor’s Oath or Declaration” (Form PTOL-2306).  The Notice states that there is some real or imagined defect in the inventor declaration that was filed back when the patent application was filed in the first place.  In a very large percentage of cases, there is not actually anything wrong with the inventor declaration. Continue reading “USPTO wrongly bouncing inventor declarations”

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Time of day returns to normal for US filers filing at the International Bureau

Readers will recall my blog post of two weeks ago in which I described that an American filer would (for a limited time of two weeks) have an extra hour during which to file a same-day filing at the IB.  Well, now it’s back to normal.  Now the drop-dead time for e-filing (or fax filing) is the usual 4PM (Mountain Time).

So for your PCT filing at the RO/IB, or your direct filing of a Hague Agreement design application, or your payment of a renewal for a Madrid Protocol international trademark registration, or an Article 19 amendment, or a PCT Demand … it’s back to normal.

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ISA/RU search fee to increase on May 1

For a US filer who is filing a PCT application and who is picking the Russian patent office, the search fee will increase on May 1, 2017.  The search fee, presently $449, will increase to $482.

If you rank ISAs in order by the size of the search fees, the Russian patent office will still be the least expensive searching authority available to US filers after May 1, just as it is now.

The formal name of the Russian patent office is Federal Service for Intellectual Property but the nickname is Rospatent.  Which gives us an opportunity to brush up on our knowledge Cyrillic.  As you can see in the logo at the upper right, in Cyrillic the “P” is what we English speakers would voice as an “r”.  The “C” is what we would voice as an “s”.  The Π (like a Greek letter π) is what we would voice as a “p”.  And the “H” is what we would voice as an “n”.

Which brings me to a fun old classic mystery movie in which this Cyrillic H played a part.  In the movie, a handkerchief is found with an “H” embroidered on it.  This implicates a person whose name is pronounced starting with an “h”.  But a clever person in the movie realizes that the “H” might be sounded as an “n”, implicating a person with a Russian name.

The first person to post a comment identifying this movie will win a super spiffy digital voltmeter from Oppedahl Patent Law Firm LLC.