Recall my blog post of a couple of days ago on Trump’s “Return to in-person work” order. Now the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) have issued “further guidance” to agencies on their ending of work-from-home. It is dated January 27, 2025 and you can see it here. Continue reading “Further guidance from OPM and OMB to agencies about ending work-from-home”
How Trump’s “Return to in-person work” order affects the USPTO
(The brief answer is, most employees of the USPTO who work from home will not need to do anything differently in the near term, and instead will have to await “separate guidance.”)
On his first day at work, one of the executive orders signed by Trump was an order (see it here) aiming to terminate “remote work arrangements”. The order, dated January 20, 2025, says:
Heads of all departments and agencies in the executive branch of Government shall, as soon as practicable, take all necessary steps to terminate remote work arrangements and require employees to return to work in-person at their respective duty stations on a full-time basis, provided that the department and agency heads shall make exemptions they deem necessary. Continue reading “How Trump’s “Return to in-person work” order affects the USPTO”
It’s time to get in your numbers for the 2024 toteboards
Hello readers. It is now 2025 and this means it is time to get in your numbers for the 2024 toteboards:
The goal is to recognize and rank law firms in the US based upon the numbers of US design patents, US utility patents, US plant patents, and US trademark registrations each firm obtained for clients in 2024.
The questionnaires will close on Friday, February 14, 2025.
Every year after I post the results of the toteboards, I get sad emails from firms that want me to accept their numbers late. This would, of course, typically result in kicking other firms down in the rankings — other firms that got their numbers in on time. Please help to reduce the number of such sad emails that I will receive this year. Maybe you are a person at your firm who is responsible for getting these numbers in. If so, please get your numbers in! Otherwise, please forward this blog posting to somebody at your firm to make sure that somebody at your firm gets the numbers in for your firm.
You can see the previous toteboards here, going back to the earliest toteboard in 2012.
USPTO mail room works unacceptably slowly
The mail room at the USPTO is, politely stated, a striking example of a service failure. Continue reading “USPTO mail room works unacceptably slowly”
poorly worded USPTO announcement
Yes, I realize the subject line doesn’t actually narrow things down very much, in the sense that many USPTO announcements are poorly worded in one way or another. But this one is breathtaking in the extremity of its poor wording. See if you can catch it:
Planned maintenance
Customer Interaction Platform Contact Center Transition
The USPTO will transition our contact centers to a new platform beginning at midnight ET on Monday, October 28 and ending at midnight ET on Tuesday, October 29.
Users may experience longer wait times during the transition period.
(emphasis in original.) Continue reading “poorly worded USPTO announcement”
Equity, Diversity, and Inclusivity CLE for patent and trademark attorneys
Colorado Rule 250.2(1)(a)(i) says that beginning January 1, 2023, every registered attorney must achieve at least two credit hours per reporting period in the area of equity, diversity, and inclusivity.
The Colorado office in charge of CLE lists three areas that are supposed to be covered in CLE courses about equity, diversity, and inclusivity, namely:
-
- equal access to the legal system;
- competent representation of diverse populations;
- the recognition, mitigation, or elimination of bias in the legal profession or the legal system.
What may a patent attorney or trademark attorney do to respond in a meaningful way to licensure requirements regarding equity, diversity, and inclusivity? In this webinar, join your presenter, Carl Oppedahl, in trying to figure out what the problems are, in such areas as patent and trademark prosecution, for which an EDI CLE requirement might be a solution.
When and where? Thursday, September 5, 2024, Noon to 1:40 PM Mountain Time (100 minutes)
Format: Live webinar
For more information, or to register, click here.
Trademark Office can’t handle its own characters
Seems to me that the Trademark Office people at the USPTO ought to have put software safeguards in place so that the Trademark Office could handle its own characters. The Trademark Office has not put such safeguards into place. Continue reading “Trademark Office can’t handle its own characters”
Ethics CLE – securing electronic communications
In nearly every state, ethics rules require a lawyer to make reasonable efforts to prevent the inadvertent or unauthorized disclosure of, or unauthorized access to, information relating to the representation of a client. Colorado Rule 1.6(c), for example, says:
A lawyer shall make reasonable efforts to prevent the inadvertent or unauthorized disclosure of, or unauthorized access to, information relating to the representation of a client.
Does it violate ethics rules to use email in client communications? Does it violate ethics rules to use ordinary text messaging on a mobile phone? What about Skype, or Whatsapp, Viber or Signal? Continue reading “Ethics CLE – securing electronic communications”
EUIPO and Benelux are missing from Trademark Center
The executive summary is that the USPTO developers of Trademark Center made a big mistake in the coding of the priority claims in a trademark application — they failed to provide EUIPO and Benelux as trademark offices in which a priority application might have been filed. In doing so, they failed to learn from the identical mistake that had been made by the USPTO developers of Patent Center, who had failed to provide EPO and OAPI and ARIPO and EAPO as patent offices in which a priority application might have been filed. Continue reading “EUIPO and Benelux are missing from Trademark Center”
Eleventh annual e-Trademarks reception was a success
I am delighted to be able to report that the eleventh annual e-Trademarks reception went very well. I think it was a complete success. You can see a very nice group photo taken by listserv member Doug Isenberg, quoted at right. Click to enlarge it. You will see 48 attendees in the photo, taken toward the end of the evening. Over the course of the event, some eighty attendees visited. Celebrity attendees included Debbie Roenning, director of the Madrid Legal Division of the World Intellectual Property Organization, David Gooder, Commissioner for Trademarks of the USPTO, and Derrick Brent, Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Deputy Director of the USPTO.