What are the Best Practices for docketing PPH? What are the chief sources of delay that the practitioner hopes to control or minimize as part of the PPH docketing process? In this article I will try to answer these two questions. Continue reading “Docketing PPH – chief sources of delay”
Yet another nice thing about ePCT
The other day I stumbled quite by chance upon yet another nice thing about ePCT. In this blog article I will describe the nice thing. And the alert reader might be able to win a prize. Continue reading “Yet another nice thing about ePCT”
Get some PCT CLE in Nashville on May 6
Yours truly will speak at the Spring CLE program of the Tennessee Intellectual Property Law Association, on Friday, May 6 in Nashville, Tennessee. You can see the brochure here. I will lecture on best practices for use of the Patent Cooperation Treaty. I look forward to seeing lots of Tennessee patent practitioners at this program.
Time of day at RO/IB returns to normal for US filers
On March 13 I blogged that US filers filing PCT applications in RO/IB needed to pay extra close attention to what time it is in Switzerland. The reason is that in the US, Daylight Saving Time happened on March 13. But did not happen on that day in Switzerland. This meant that for the past two weeks, a US-based filer in (for example) the Mountain Time zone would be able to e-file in RO/IB as late as 5PM and still get a same-day filing date. This differed from the usual drop-dead time of 4PM.
Today (March 27, 2016) is the day that Daylight Saving Time happens in Switzerland. The consequence of this is that the time difference between the US filer’s time zone and the time in RO/IB is back to normal. So for a US-based filer in the Mountain Time zone, the drop-dead time returns today to the usual 4PM.
This change also affects a US-based filer filing a design application in the IB’s Hague Agreement e-filing system.
US PCT filers get yet another option for International Searching Authority
Until now a US filer of a PCT application had the ability to choose from any of a list of seven International Searching Authorities — ISA/US (the USPTO’s contractors), ISA/EP (the European Patent Office), ISA/KR (the Korean patent office), ISA/AU (the Australian patent office), ISA/RU (the Russian patent office), ISA/IL (the Israeli patent office), and ISA/JP (the Japanese Patent Office). Starting a week from now, on April 1, 2016, US filers will be able to choose from a longer list of eight International Searching Authorities.
Continue reading “US PCT filers get yet another option for International Searching Authority”
Paying attention to Daylight Saving Time and RO/IB for the next two weeks
Most PCT filers know that there are always a minimum of two Receiving Offices (and sometimes more than two) available to any PCT applicant that is entitled to use the Patent Cooperation Treaty. For example for a US-based PCT applicant, the ROs available are (at a minimum) at least RO/US and RO/IB. And most PCT filers also know that there can sometimes be very good reasons to use RO/IB rather than RO/US. Indeed there are some fact situations where it is tantamount to malpractice to fail to use RO/IB rather than RO/US.
Given all of this, it is very important to keep in mind that for the next two weeks, the drop-dead time of day for filing in the RO/IB will be different than it is for most of the year.
Normally the drop-dead time of day for filing in the RO/IB is 4:00 PM (for filers in the Mountain Time Zone). That is, the time in Switzerland is eight hours different from the time in Denver.
But for the next two weeks, the drop-dead time of day for filing in the RO/IB will be 5:00 PM (for filers in the Mountain Time Zone). Said differently, for the next two weeks you could file in the RO/IB an hour later than usual and still receive a same-day filing date.
How to file PCT applications despite the USPTO’s massive system crash
Both of the EFS-Web servers (the main one and the “contingency” one) are crashed, and have been crashed since December 22. This means that if you are going to file a PCT application in RO/US, you are stuck doing it by hand-carrying it on paper to the USPTO or running a paper application down to the post office.
So what’s the smart way to file your PCT application just now?
I am indebted to alert reader Rick Neifeld who reminded me that the smart way is to file in RO/IB. And the smart way to file in RO/IB is of course to do it by means of ePCT.
The only thing to watch out for is the Foreign Filing License (FFL) situation. You need to make sure either to already have an FFL or not need one.
The way to not need an FFL is to have an invention that was not made in the US.
The easy way to already have an FFL is to have filed a priority application in the USPTO more than six months in the past (so that you will have received an automatic FFL just because six months passed). Or check your filing receipt on the priority application and hopefully it will say that you have an express FFL.
USPTO chips away at auto-loading of bib data into Palm
When EFS-Web was new, the USPTO tried to be smart about bibliographic (bib) data. USPTO designed Form PTO/SB/14 which was an enormous (one megabyte) PDF form. The user could paste the bib data into the form. This included things such as “who are the inventors” and “what are their residences” and “what is the priority claim” and “what domestic benefit claim is being made to a provisional application”. The form was entitled “Application Data Sheet” (ADS).
This was a lot of work for the user, but USPTO dangled a reward. If the user were to include this ADS in the initial EFS-Web submission, the USPTO would promise to auto-load all of the bib data into Palm. From there it would propagate into PAIR and it would be used in preparing the official Filing Receipt. I will now describe how this reward gradually changed into a hoax. Continue reading “USPTO chips away at auto-loading of bib data into Palm”
How USPTO could handle bib data changes better
(On December 21, USPTO released a new functionality called Corrected Web-based Application Data Sheet. I have posted a followup blog article about this new functionality.)
Sometimes a filer needs to update bibliographic (bib) data in a pending patent application. In a recent blog post I talked about how USPTO’s preferred way of receiving requests for bib data changes is ill-conceived and wastes the valuable time of USPTO personnel and valuable time of the filer. In that blog post I described how USPTO’s rules actually permit the use of a “smart procedure” in which the filer only lists the items being changed. Items that are not being changed could be omitted in this “smart procedure”. But the USPTO actually recommends that the “smart procedure” not be followed.
Having said all of this, the constructive thing to do is to describe how the USPTO could handle bib data changes better. Which I will now do. Continue reading “How USPTO could handle bib data changes better”
What’s missing from USPTO’s Global Dossier public access system
Yesterday USPTO released its Global Dossier public access system. I blogged about this. In that blog article I listed three design flaws in that system. Today, having had a day to play with the system, I can describe something important that is missing from that system. Continue reading “What’s missing from USPTO’s Global Dossier public access system”