I am at Schipol airport (Amsterdam) and will shortly board a train for the Hague. Tomorrow and the next day I will be at the European Patent Office to speak at the second annual “PCT at the EPO” meeting.
I have heard from a few readers of this blog who will be at the meeting. I look forward to seeing you there.
We all recall the nightmare of having to figure out whether or not to “check the box”. You know the box that I am talking about:
Well, a nice member of our PCT listserv pointed out today that September 16, 2014 is an interesting day for the “check the box” problem. I wonder how many readers of this blog already know why this is?
As a reminder, the European Patent Office will present “PCT at the EPO”, a two-day educational program. This will be Wednesday and Th
ursday, October 1 and 2 at the EPO office at the Hague. One session is “National Phase at the USPTO”. The speakers for that session will be Michael Neas of the USPTO and myself.
This is a unique educational program with a faculty composed of patent office presenters and private practitioners.
The first day of the event will conclude with a panel discussion on key developments in the PCT (I am one of the panel members), followed by a cocktail reception and a networking dinner.
To find out more about this two-day program, or to register, click here.
I have not encountered very many patent practitioners that noticed the Federal Register notice of May 15, 2014 entitled “Revisions To Implement the Patent Term Adjustment Provisions of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act Technical Corrections Act”. This notice established today, July 31, 2014, as the last day on which you can file a certain type of request for adjustment of patent term.
Continue reading “Today is the last day to file certain PTA correction requests”
We’re just wrapping up the AIPLA PCT Road Show that started yesterday and finishes today — the road show in Westminster, Colorado. As so often happens, we (the faculty) have been blessed with an alert audience that has lots of good questions. Tomorrow is travel day …
Just now I e-filed a PCT patent application in the Receiving Office of the International Bureau. I did this using WIPO’s ePCT system. And a mere sixty seconds later, I was able to click and see a draft of the front page of what will eventually be the eighteen-month publication, all the way down to the date (February 5, 2015) that it will probably be published. I am astonished at the level of integration among WIPO’s various systems that must have been accomplished to make this possible. Indeed there are half a dozen good things about this e-filing experience that deserve comment.
Continue reading “Astonishingly good system integration at WIPO”
It’s July again, which means it is time for another AIPLA PCT Seminar. This will be the 18th annual offering of the Seminar. The Seminar will take place in Denver, Colorado on Monday and Tuesday July 21 and 22, and it will be offered a second time in Arlington, Virginia on Thursday and Friday July 24 and 25. I will be among the faculty of this Seminar. If the Seminar will take place a week from now, why is it so important to sign up before July 16?
Continue reading “Sign up before July 16 for the 18th annual AIPLA PCT Seminar”
(Further update: We win! As you can see here, the Commissioner answered our letter. The USPTO says it will stop the foot-dragging on retrieval of electronic certified copies.)
(Update: A letter got sent on February 22, 2020 to the Commissioner for Patents at the USPTO, asking the USPTO to stop its foot-dragging on retrieval of electronic certified copies from DAS and PDX. See blog post.)
If you fail to get your certified copy of your foreign priority application into the hands of the USPTO by sixteen months, you’ve lost your priority claim and will have to file a petition to get it back. Suppose you try to do this electronically and inadvertently get it wrong? USPTO’s present policy is to wait until past sixteen months to let you know. That’s not nice, and USPTO needs to change its policy.
Continue reading “USPTO could be nicer to PDX and DAS users”
This October the European Patent Office will offer a two-day educational conference PCT at the EPO 2014. To learn more, and to register, go to the brochure page. This conference will take place at The Hague.
Continue reading ““PCT at the EPO” – important conference in October at The Hague”
The EFS-Web listserv is for patent practitioners before the USPTO. A recent series of postings prompted me to offer a reminder of the potential benefits of PCT-PPH, and prompted a list member to ask:
If you are going to pay the cost of filing a PCT, why not just file TRACK I?
Here are my suggestions why I recommend not using Track I.
