It’s fascinating to see the USPTO correcting its mistake in a recent acknowledgment of an incontestability claim in a trademark registration.
An excellent blog that you should subscribe to
(See a followup article.)
Law Professor Rebecca Tushnet (Georgetown Law School) has a fascinating blog called Rebecca Tushnet’s 43(B)log with a tagline of “False advertising and more”. If you haven’t subscribed to her blog, you should. One of her blog posts today is No dog in this fight: PTO makes a cancelled mark incontestable. The story told by this posting is by turns amusing, puzzling, and astonishing as one reads about the manner in which the USPTO handled the underlying trademark application and registration.
Newly created design art unit now has a predicted First Office Action date
Recall that recently, as part of dissolving the “ghost art unit”, the USPTO created a new art unit 2919 headed by an Eric Goodman. Now for the first time, this new art unit 2919 has a publicly stated First Office Action Prediction. Cases in art unit 2919 that were filed two months ago have an FOAP of 18 months.
This compares favorably with art unit 2913 which has FOAPs in the range of 32 months.
The two receptions that you need to attend in San Diego in May
Will you be in San Diego at the time of the INTA annual meeting? If so, there are two receptions that you won’t want to miss.
Continue reading “The two receptions that you need to attend in San Diego in May”
Hague rules published
President Obama signed the act enabling the US to join the Hague Agreement on December 18, 2012. Would-be users of the Hague Agreement have thus been waiting for more than two years for the Final Rules implementing the Hague Agreement. Today the USPTO published the Final Rules.
In coming days and weeks I will post comments and observations about the new Rules. If you’ve not already done so, I invite you to subscribe to this blog so that you will see the comments and observations.
Six-month-old PPH petition granted — coincidence?
Saturday, March 21, 2015 is the day that I blogged about a PPH petition that had been outstanding in the Office of Petitions since September 12, 2014. I don’t know if it is sheer coincidence … but the Office of Petitions considered the petition on Monday, March 23 (and granted it).
So as of now our oldest not-yet-ruled-upon PPH petitions were filed November 5 and November 13. This is still an unreasonable delay within the Office of Petitions, but not as bad as the six-month-plus delay in the case that just got its petition granted.
The latest US design patent examination backlog …
We try to track the First Office Action Predictions for many of our pending patent applications for one reason or another. By now there is a very clear trend of FOAPs for newly filed US design patent applications. It suggests that there is quite a backlog of unexamined US design patent applications.
Continue reading “The latest US design patent examination backlog …”
Six months and counting …
We have a case in which we filed a PCT-PPH petition on September 12, 2014. We are now into our seventh month of waiting for the Office of Petitions to rule on the petition. I’ve blogged about this problem at the USPTO before, here and here and here and here. It does not promote science and the useful arts to have PPH petitions sitting untouched for such a long time. Nor does it serve the goals of the PCT-PPH programs to have petitions sitting untouched for such a long time.
Three and a half years …
More than three and a half years … that’s how long it took the USPTO to get around to acting upon a Power of Attorney that we filed in a patent case. Yes, the application is still pending after all this time. It happens.
Is it copending if you filed it on the day the parent issued?
[As noted in the comments below, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed. Same-day filers are safe.]
I’ve always assumed that if I manage to get my continuation or divisional application filed on the very day that the parent application issues, that’s good enough. The domestic benefit under 35 USC § 120 will work. Right?
Alert reader David Berry drew my attention to a February 11, 2015 ruling by Judge Richard G. Andrews in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware in a summary judgment motion in the case of Immersion Corp. v. HTC Corp. civil action 12-259. The ruling suggests that when the USPTO grants a patent, it does so at about 12:01 AM on the Tuesday, and that a would-be continuation or divisional application filed after 12:01 AM on that Tuesday would lack copendency under 35 USC § 120.
Continue reading “Is it copending if you filed it on the day the parent issued?”