Ant-Like Persistence

Readers will recall my previous post about big delays in the Assignment Branch at the USPTO.  As I reported in that post, we had e-filed an Assignment for recordation on October 10, 2016 and even after some weeks the Assignment Branch had not gotten around to giving us the all-important reel and frame number.  We had placed a followup call on October 27 reaching a nice fellow who told us that there was a backlog.  We placed another followup call on November 7 reaching a nice woman who said yes there was still a backlog.  On that day I posted the above-mentioned blog article and one reader posted a comment that she was able to top me.  She had e-filed an Assignment on October 6 that had not been recorded as of November 7.  Another reader posted a comment that he was able to top both of us, with an Assignment that he had e-filed on September 15 and that the Assignment Branch had not recorded as of November 7.

Anyway now there is news.  Today, November 15, USPTO has mailed a Notice of Recordation for this Assignment that we e-filed on October 10.  It took the Assignment Branch 36 days to get around to recording this Assignment.

How disappointing.  For many years now, USPTO has been repeatedly reminded of the need to provide a geographic separation between its main e-filing server (EFS-Web) and the backup (“Contingency”) server.  The idea is that even if one of the servers were to crash, the other one would still be working.  This is a matter of common sense.  Any competent system designer would do this without having to be told.

USPTO has, however, failed to do this.

Readers will recall the incident on May 14, 2014 when both servers crashed and remained out of service for over eighteen hours.  I blogged about this.

Readers will recall the incident on December 22, 2015 when both servers crashed and remained out of service for several days.

Now today, both servers crashed at 3:50 PM (Eastern Time) and remained out of service for over an hour and a half.

It is very very disappointing that USPTO has not taken this common-sense step of geographic separation despite years of reminders of the need to do so.

There is a second, extremely disappointing aspect of today’s double system crash.  The USPTO’s system status page never got updated to indicate that anyone at USPTO was aware of the double system crash.  It is so disappointing when some important USPTO system is broken and the system status page fails to indicate that USPTO is aware of the failure.

Some readers will recall my blog post of April 1, 2016 about the contingency server having been relocated to the Denver patent office.  This was, unfortunately, only an April Fool’s Day posting.   Maybe today’s double crash will finally prompt USPTO to do the right thing as described in that posting.

 

When we e-file a new patent application in EFS-Web, the prize that we seek is the all-important application number.  EFS-Web gives us this very important number within seconds of our clicking “submit”.

When we e-file an assignment in EPAS (the system for e-filing patent assignments for recordation), the prize that we seek is the all-important reel and frame number.   But the EPAS system does not give us this very important number right away.  Usually it takes a few days.

Why does it take a few days?  Why does USPTO not provide the all-important reel and frame number within seconds of our clicking “submit”?

A cynic would imagine that the explanation is an LMR (labor-management relations) issue.  Maybe the USPTO feels it cannot do away with these jobs.

I suppose that’s not the explanation.  I suppose the USPTO feels the need to check the uploaded PDF to see if it contains scandalous subject matter.  And perhaps to check to see whether the document appears on its face to be an assignment (rather than, say, a newspaper clipping).

Normally this takes two or three days.  But we have an assignment that we e-filed on October 10, 2016.  Almost a month has passed and still we do not have the all-important reel and frame number.

So we phoned up the Assignment Branch.  Once a couple of weeks ago and again today.  The people who answer the phone there are very nice.  They did not fix the problem, but they are very nice.  It seems that our submission is still “in process”.

This particular assignment conveys several dozen properties.  I asked the Assignment Branch person whether this might explain the delay.  She said no, the delay is not due to the large number of properties.  She also said no, it is not tied to the type of conveyance.  It is just the large number of assignments that had been e-filed.

This actually doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.  We have e-filed at least a dozen assignments since that one on October 10, and in each case we received the all-important reel and frame number within a couple of days.

So I don’t really understand why this one is outstanding since October 10.

How old is your oldest assignment that does not yet have a reel and frame number?  Please post a comment below.