Do you sometimes prepare a submission in USPTO’s TEAS system, and send it to a client so that the client may review it and maybe e-sign it? (Examples of such a submission might include the filing of a new US trademark application or the filing of a Statement of Use.) If so, then during the next two weeks you may wish to carry out that task in a slightly different way than the usual way. The nice thing is that the Trademark Office is being helpful to its customers by letting them know in advance of something important that will happen about two weeks from now.
The Terrifying New York Definition of a Franchise
It is all too easy for an intellectual property practitioner in the US to fall into the bad habit of assuming that everything about IP is the same in every state of the US. The other day a discussion in the E-Trademarks listserv offered a reminder of a particularly nasty trap for the unwary — the terrifying New York definition of a franchise.
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Odd new USPTO feature in EPAS and ETAS
The other day I encountered a new “feature” of EPAS and ETAS. 
You can see it in this screen shot:
Apparently the USPTO wants to make it possible for the filer to somehow influence the physical sequence in which recordations appear in the Abstract of Title.
As far as I can see this is not a good thing for USPTO to do.
Fresh air from the Trademark Office
It’s easy to gripe when the USPTO does something, or proposes to do something, that makes it harder to get a patent or harder to register a trademark. But it’s only fair to recognize those times when USPTO gets things right by making something easier or better. As a recent example, the USPTO got it right when it relaxed certain requirements for getting a patent application onto Track I. And the USPTO got it right when it relaxed rules for CPAs in design patent applications. Now USPTO has proposed rules which would make it easier (and cheaper) to get and renew a trademark registration.
What USPTO should do — make patent assignments viewable
USPTO, in response to pressure from the White House and from big companies that are recipients of cease-and-desist letters, recently published proposed rules with a stated goal of promoting transparency in ownership of patents. There are many things wrong (blog) with the proposed rules. But there is a simple thing that the USPTO could do to promote transparency in ownership of patents that would not require rulemaking at all — make patent assignments viewable.
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A blog with a name – “Ant-like Persistence”
About two months ago I launched this blog. It took me a while, but now I have picked a name for the blog. The alert reader will recall Learned Hand’s (perhaps backhanded) compliment to patent practitioners, citing their “ant-like persistence” (Lyon v. Boh, 1 F.2d 48, 50 (S.D.N.Y.1924). With a nod to those patent practitioners who at the start of the twentieth century exhibited the ant-like persistence that inspired Learned Hand to write this colorful phrase, I hereby dub this the “Ant-like Persistence” blog.
Intellectual property in pop culture — “Silicon Valley” on HBO
Today the followers of the HBO series Silicon Valley (yes, me among them) saw the third episode. In this episode, we encounter at least two intellectual property issues.
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For those filing at WIPO, a time zone change
The US and Europe do not agree on when to start and when to stop Daylight Saving Time. The US started DST on March 9, 2014, and Europe started DST today, March 30. This is important for US filers who file things at WIPO.
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USPTO is closed today, Monday, March 17
USPTO is closed today, Monday, March 17 as a snow day.
Anything that you might have needed to file today to meet a USPTO due date may be postponed until tomorrow, Tuesday March 18. But there are some things to watch out for.
Best Practice: using USPTO’s Financial Profile system
USPTO has many e-commerce systems that are well known to practitioners and applicants — EFS-Web for e-filing patent documents, TEAS for e-filing trademark documents, ESTTA for e-filing TTAB documents to name three examples. But I find it remarkable how few practitioners and applicants know anything about USPTO’s Financial Profile system. The Financial Profile system is (or should be) a central part of the bookkeeping workflow for any patent firm or trademark firm and for any corporate patent department or corporate trademark department.
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