There are several hundred pages on the web site of Oppedahl Patent Law Firm LLC at https://www.oppedahl.com/. For the first time in some months I clicked around a bit in our visitor statistics, and found that one particular page on our law firm web site is ten times more popular than any other page on our law firm web site. (I am talking about www.oppedahl.com here, not blog.oppedahl.com.) Continue reading “Most popular page on OPLF’s web site?”
I folded on the specimen rejection
Readers will recall my posting on July 21 in which I complained about the USPTO’s post-registration division bouncing a specimen in the renewal of my own trademark registration. I was trying to do an 8-and-15 for my mark “OPLF”. The services were all drawn from the ID Manual, and it seemed to me that the words “Patent Attorney” on the card made clear that I was providing patent attorney services. But that’s not how post-reg saw it. The way they saw it, the business card supposedly failed to “reference” the services. They bounced the specimen. Continue reading “I folded on the specimen rejection”
USPTO can’t say it wasn’t warned about its Java applet problem
It is astonishing that even now, in August of 2015, despite many warnings and requests from users over the span of several years, USPTO has not scrapped its Java applet. By this I mean the Entrust Java applet which
USPTO forces customers to use to authenticate their logins at Private PAIR and EFS-Web. The most recent reminder of all of this is USPTO’s oddly worded “Third Notice”, an email alert on August 18, 2015 from the USPTO warning customers that time is running out for users of Chrome browsers. In September of 2015 (that is, during the next month) Chrome will stop supporting Java, meaning that users of Chrome will no longer be able to log in at Private PAIR or EFS-Web.
Until now I had sort of thought of Chrome as a relative newcomer among web browsers, and I had sort of assumed that most people still use Firefox and Microsoft Internet Exploder. Which got me wondering, how many USPTO customers use Chrome anyway? Continue reading “USPTO can’t say it wasn’t warned about its Java applet problem”
No outgoing correspondence from USPTO this week?
Over on the patent practitioner’s listserv, alert listserv member Judith Szepesi asked:
I usually get 1-2 things via eOffice Action every day. I haven’t gotten any emails in the last week. Not a single one. Logging in, the last item on PAIR Outgoing Correspondence has a mail room date of August 11, 2015. I don’t think I have had a break this long since I set up the eOffice Action emails. Is it just me?
Continue reading “No outgoing correspondence from USPTO this week?”
Good news – a design Examiner understands Score
It’s always nice when an Examiner understands SCORE. Continue reading “Good news – a design Examiner understands Score”
What it costs to get a US application on the Patent Prosecution Highway?
Previously I blogged about what it might cost to get a US application examined fast on Track I and by Accelerated Examination and by an old-fashioned Petition to Make Special and under Rule 496. Now let’s talk a bit about what it might cost to get a US application examined fast on the Patent Prosecution Highway. Continue reading “What it costs to get a US application on the Patent Prosecution Highway?”
What it costs to get a US application “advanced out of turn” under Rule 496?
Recently I blogged about what it might cost to get a US patent fast using Track I or Accelerated Examination or due to age or health of inventor. Here is another blog posting, this one about getting a US patent fast using Rule 496.
Some practitioners know about 37 CFR 1.496 (“Rule 496”). Rule 496 details a situation in which a US patent application that is the national phase of a PCT application will be “advanced out of turn for examination.” What should a practitioner charge for getting a case “advanced out of turn” under Rule 496? Continue reading “What it costs to get a US application “advanced out of turn” under Rule 496?”
Nice feature in WIPO’s DAS system – notifications
Yesterday for the first time I encountered a particularly nice feature
in WIPO’s Digital Access Service (DAS). The feature has been there for some time but yesterday was the first time I actually saw it work. The feature is that you can set up a sort of “tripwire” and when some Office retrieves a certified copy of one of your priority applications from DAS, you will receive an email message letting you know that this happened. Yesterday for the first time I received such an email.
Continue reading “Nice feature in WIPO’s DAS system – notifications”
Nice feature in ePCT – fee payments
There’s a nice new feature in ePCT. It used to be that if you were to file a new PCT application in RO/IB, and if you were to say that you plan to pay by means of a credit card, that what would happen is later (some days later) you would receive an email message with a link to a web page inviting you to pay the fees.
Now the ePCT system takes care of everything all at once. When you click “submit” to e-file the PCT application, and when you say you would like to pay the fee by credit card, then a new screen appears that permits you to type in the credit card number and other information. You can finish the e-filing session with the knowledge that you have indeed taken care of the fee payment.
This is good for several reasons.
First, it saves you having to docket to check for the arrival of the several-days-later email to pay the fee. (We estimate that every time we have to set and clear a docket, we incur an internal cost of something like $50.)
Second, it gets the fees into the RO’s hands sooner. Which means that the search fee gets into the hands of the ISA sooner. Which means the International Search Report and Written Opinion arrive sooner.
Extent to which metadata in PDF Documents filed in EFS-Web can be seen later?
There’s a discussion over in the EFS-Web listserv (the listserv for patent practitioners) about the best way to create a PDF so that it won’t unnecessarily reveal metadata. The answer for Windows users is of course to use CutePDF to create the PDF. Which then led to the question of the extent to which USPTO strips out metadata in which case maybe the filer can be lax about this. What is the answer? Continue reading “Extent to which metadata in PDF Documents filed in EFS-Web can be seen later?”