Bluesky: @oppedahl.com
The National Institute of Industrial Property of Argentina (INPI) had already been trendy, modern, and up-to-date, having joined the DAS system on October 1, 2019 (blog article). Today’s news is that INPI has become even more trendy, modern and up-to-date. It now participates in DAS in more ways. Continue reading “Argentina intellectual property office becomes more trendy, modern and up-to-date”
You heard it here first (blog article, July 13, 2023)! Today is the day that the Italian Patent and Trademark Office becomes an Accessing Office in the DAS system for the following kinds of applications:
Continue reading “Today is the day — Italy becomes an Accessing Office in DAS”
The USPTO has announced that it plans to send a “welcome letter” to each applicant that files a new trademark application or patent application at the USPTO. You can see the actual wecome letters archived here (trademarks) and here (patents).
For their entire careers, US patent and trademark practitioners have lived and breathed a world of “reel and frame numbers” that are somehow intimately connected with the recordation of patent and trademark assignments. What exactly are reel and frame numbers, and how is it that reel and frame numbers relate closely with bitcoin and blockchain and shared ledgers? Continue reading “What reel and frame numbers have to do with bitcoin and blockchain and shared ledgers”
On October 1, 2020 (blog article) the Italian patent and trademark office joined the DAS system. It became a Depositing Office in the DAS system for the following kinds of applications:
On September 1, 2023, the Italian patent and trademark office will become an Accessing Office in the DAS system for these same kinds of applications. This is, of course, a very exciting development for the Italian patent and trademark office and for the DAS system.
About once a month we at OPLF get an inquiry from an intellectual property firm located outside of the US regarding a client’s name change or assignment. The inquiry is along the lines of:
Here is a draft Assignment from Company A to Company B. Kindly advise whether this Assignment will be acceptable to the USPTO to transfer patent C from Company A to Company B. Kindly advise what other documents if any will be needed and what this will cost.
Or the inquiry is along the lines of:
Here is an excerpt from the official corporate register of country A evidencing that the Company has officially changed its name from A to B. Kindly advise whether this document will be acceptable to the USPTO to change the applicant name from A to B. Kindly advise what other documents if any will be needed and what this will cost.
We find ourselves having to explain the same things, over and over again, to non-US counsel. We hope that with this blog article we can save some time for everybody involved and answer some of the questions. Continue reading “Will the attached assignment be acceptable to the USPTO?”
Today is the day that the State Patent Bureau of the Republic of Lithuania becomes even more trendy, modern and up-to-date. Today is the date that the Lithuanian patent office commences participation in the DAS system in four ways:
You heard this exciting news from me first, in my blog posting of May 4, 2023.
The Lithuanian patent office has already been a participant in the DAS system since January 1, 2023 in these ways:
The two-letter code (ISO-3166 code) for this Office is “LT”. The web site of the Lithuanian patent office may be seen here.
Tuesday, July 4, 2023 will be a federal holiday in the District of Columbia. This means that the USPTO will be closed that day.
This means that any response that would normally be due on Tuesday, July 4 will be timely if made by Wednesday, July 5.
Note the important comment below from alert reader Dan Ferris:
It’s important to note that the “next business day” rule does not apply to the copendency requirement for filing divisional/continuation applications. Any such applications with parent applications issuing on July 4, 2023 should be filed no later than July 4, 2023.
It will be recalled that there is an appeal pending before the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on “where you sleep at night”. Many months ago, the USPTO had filed a brief in that appeal, representing to the Court that it was protecting the “where you sleep at night” domicile addresses of trademark applicants from exposure to the public. And it will be recalled that recently the USPTO revealed that for more than three years, it had failed to protect the “where you sleep at night” domicile addresses of applicants from exposure to the public, despite having promised to do so. In other words, the representation in that brief was untrue. The Associate Solicitor of the USPTO wrote a letter to the CAFC that sort of admitted this (blog article).
Now the appellant has filed a letter response. You can see it here. It is interesting reading.
The Associate Solicitor of the USPTO today wrote a letter to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, sort of coming clean to the Court about the USPTO’s recently revealed “where you sleep at night” blunder. Continue reading “USPTO comes clean (sort of) to the CAFC about its “where you sleep at night” blunder”