Category: Trademarks

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New Financial Manager system connects with more and more USPTO e-commerce systems

USPTO launched its “Financial Manager” system about two weeks ago.  (At the same time, USPTO permanently shut down the wonderful “Financial Profile” system that had served users well for many years.)

When the Financial Manager (“FM”) system launched two weeks ago, it was connected with one e-commerce system, namely the system for paying patent maintenance fees.  I blogged about the new maintenance fee payment system here.

Today the USPTO connected its new FM system to TEAS, the e-filing system for trademark application. I blogged about this new connection here.

This means that trademark filers no longer have to key in an entire credit card number when paying a fee. The filer can simply select the card from a drop-down list of stored payment mechanisms.

Today the USPTO also connected its new FM system to the online ordering system of the Office of Public Records. This ordering system, with the catchy name “OEMS”, now likewise permits you to select a payment mechanism from a stored list. This saves you having to key in detailed credit card information when placing such orders.

I have heard that in about a week, USPTO plans to connect FM to the EFS-Web system.

It’s clear from these developments that we all need to get familiar with FM. Presumably you configured your FM user accounts two weeks ago. But if you have not done so yet, you can visit the Financial Manager setup page to set things up.

Have you used FM?  Please post a comment below to let readers know how it went for you.

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Now trademark filers don’t need to key in credit card numbers

fm-tmIf, like me, you sometimes use a credit card to pay fees when filing a US trademark application, then you are accustomed to having to key in a sixteen-digit credit card number to pay the filing fee.  Indeed you are accustomed to having to key in six categories of information — the credit card number, the expiration date, the CCV code, the cardholder name, the billing address, and the billing Zip code.

But as of today, you can skip all of that.  You can use USPTO’s new Financial Manager (FM) system to store payment methods.  When you do this (see screen shot at right), you can choose “stored payment method”.  Then you select a stored payment method from a drop-down list.  In this case I selected a Visa card.  Then you key in the card security code and click “submit”.

This saves you having to key in five of the six categories of information mentioned above.

If you have not stored any payment methods in FM, then you can still proceed in the old-fashioned way, choosing “credit/debit card” and hand-keying the six categories of information.

In an office having high rates of employee turnover, this system will permit an employee to pay a trademark fee without the need to provide the actual credit card number or expiration date to the employee.

The FM system has been available for two weeks now.  Presumably you configured your FM user accounts two weeks ago.  But if you have not done so yet, you can visit the Financial Manager setup page to set things up.

Have you successfully paid a trademark fee using this new “stored payment” method?  If so, please post a comment below and let me know how it went.

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Conspicuous by its absence in the new USPTO Financial Manager system

us-loginA week ago USPTO launched its new Financial Manager system.  A core component of this FM system is The New USPTO.gov Account system.  As explained on the USPTO web site, The New USPTO.gov Account system “will one day be your single means of accessing USPTO services and applications”.  In other words, it will be a successor to the present-day system of logging in at EFS-Web and Private PAIR.timeout2

Unfortunately, the designers of the new USPTO FM system (who I guess are the same as the designers of The New USPTO.gov Account system) failed to follow through on a promise that the USPTO made back in 2012.  I’m talking about a promise to let the customer pick how much time would pass before the customer would get forced into a logout from the system.

Continue reading “Conspicuous by its absence in the new USPTO Financial Manager system”

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Now you can hand-file applications in the four satellite patent offices!

The USPTO has made the long-awaited announcement that it is now possible to hand-carry patent and trademark applications for filing in the Detroit, Denver, San Jose, and Dallas patent offices.  Each office has a staffed receiving window open until midnight local time, Monday through Friday, excepting federal holidays.

Detroit patent office:

300 River Place South, Suite 2900, Detroit, MI 48207

Eastern time zone

 detroit
Denver patent office:

1961 Stout Street, Denver, CO 80294

Mountain time zone

  denver
Dallas patent office:

207 South Houston Street, Dallas, TX 75202

Central time zone

  dallas
San Jose patent office:

26 South Fourth Street, San Jose, CA 95113

Pacific time zone

  sanjose

Importantly this will permit filers who are located nearby to the patent offices in Dallas, Denver, and San Jose to hand-carry patent and trademark applications to the local patent office until midnight local time, which is past midnight in Alexandria, Virginia.  Such an application will receive a filing date based upon the local time.  Thus for example a filer could get a same-day filing date in San Jose by hand carrying an application to the San Jose patent office just before midnight Pacific time, which is almost three hours past midnight in Alexandria, Virginia.

In its announcement, the USPTO cautions filers that if a patent application (other than a provisional application) is filed by means of hand-carrying, a $400 fee is charged for paper filing.  That fee is reduced to $200 for a small entity and is further reduced to $100 for a micro entity.

Likewise a hand-carried trademark application incurs a higher government fee than an e-filed application, namely $375 per class as compared with $325 or less per class for an e-filed application.

According to the USPTO’s announcement, the new filing options are available starting today, April 1, 2016.

Have you tried out the new hand-carry filing options at any of these patent offices?  If so, please post a comment below and describe how it went.

(Updated to admit that this is an April Fool’s posting.)

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Meet the Bloggers XII

Will you be in Orlando at the time of the 2016 INTA annual meeting?  If so, you might want to attend the twelfth annual Meet the Bloggers.  This is your opportunity meet the writers of some of the most widely read intellectual property and trademark related blogs.  To find out more, go to https://www.meet-the-bloggers.com/.

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USPTO continues to fail to provide up-to-date web security

It’s been many years since I first tried to nudge the USPTO in the direction of providing up-to-date web security for its customers.  Up-to-date web security includes at least three measures:

  • HTTPS connections for all e-commerce web sites
  • PFS (perfect forward secrecy) for all HTTPS web sites
  • DNSSEC (Domain Name System security) for all domain names

I’m not the only one trying to nudge the USPTO in the right direction.  No less an authority than the White House has also tried to nudge the USPTO in this direction, by means of presidential executive order:

  • In 2008, the White House directed all US government agencies (including the USPTO) to implement DNSSEC on all of their domain names (memorandum M-08-233).
  • In 2015, the White House directed all US government agencies (including the USPTO) to implement HTTPS on all of their web sites (memorandum M-15-13).

A White House CIO web page explains to US government agencies how to implement HTTPS on their web sites.  The web page says:

Federal websites that do not convert to HTTPS will not keep pace with privacy and security practices used by commercial organizations, and with current and upcoming Internet standards. This leaves Americans vulnerable to known threats, and may reduce their confidence in their government.

In August of 2014 I urged the USPTO to implement HTTPS on its servers (“USPTO needs to implement SSL and PFS on all servers“).  I pointed out that TESS, TEAS, EPAS, ETAS, AOTW, PATFT, and TSDR all lacked HTTPS and PFS.  I pointed out that EPO and WIPO have PFS on their servers that have HTTPS.

What progress has USPTO made since August of 2014 when I nudged the USPTO?  What progress has USPTO made since June of 2015 when the President nudged the USPTO? Continue reading “USPTO continues to fail to provide up-to-date web security”

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How long a trademark Request to Divide takes?

If you are an active trademark practitioner before the USPTO, the E-Trademarks listserv is a good place to hang out.  Here is a question that a listserv member posted to the discussion group:

Does anybody have an idea of how long it takes to process a request to divide?  That last one I filed took about 2 days, but that was some time ago.  I am currently waiting on one I filed over three weeks ago.  Does anybody know the standard timeline these days?
How long do you suppose it takes for the Trademark Office to act upon a Request to Divide?

Continue reading “How long a trademark Request to Divide takes?”

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Trump files three more trademark applications for “Make America Great Again”

Last summer I blogged here and here about Donald Trump’s first US trademark application for “Make America Great Again”.  That one registered in July of 2015 (US trademark registration number 4773272).

Now Mr. Trump has filed three more trademark applications for the same mark:

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2015 Toteboards Published

From 2005 to 2014, Intellectual Property Today magazine served the IP community by providing toteboards ranking US patent and trademark firms according to the number of patents and trademarks obtained for clients each year.

The Ant-Like Persistence blog now carries on this tradition.  Here are the 2015 US toteboards.  You can see:

You can also see previous US Design Patent Toteboards for 2014, 2013, and 2012.

These toteboards rely upon reported numbers from patent and trademark firms.  Unfortunately, not all patent and trademark firms reported their numbers, which doubtless left some omissions in the rankings.  For the utility and design patent toteboards, we were able to carry out searches on a USPTO database to remedy some of the omissions.  As for US trademark registrations, however, it is not easy to carry out searches by trademark firm.  So there are probably more omissions in that toteboard.

Hopefully by next year most patent and trademark firms will be aware of these toteboards and will report their numbers.

If your firm did not respond and is not listed in these 2015 toteboards, feel free to post a comment below with your firm’s totals for 2015 and, if you like, the approximate ranking that you think would have resulted for your firm.