Posts

Posted on

Telling twelve thousand people about four free webinars

click to enlarge

The map at right shows, in real time, our progress in letting twelve thousand people learn that they have an opportunity to attend four free-of-charge webinars about PCT forms.  As you can see, some 1600 emails have been sent (light green shading) to people in Asia and Africa and eastern and central Europe.  Just now, emails are being sent (dark green shading) to people in west Africa and parts of Greenland.  Some 11000 emails are waiting to be sent to people in North and South America.  Why did these emails not get sent all at once?  Continue reading “Telling twelve thousand people about four free webinars”

Posted on

What is “card testing”? What should you do about it?

Yesterday, for the first time in the seven-year history of our OPLF shopping cart, somebody used our shopping cart for “card testing”.  A fraudster in a foreign country had purchased a bundle of stolen credit card numbers, and wanted to determine which of the cards was still valid.  Such a person will engage in “card testing”.  The person tries to make purchases with the credit card numbers, using an online commerce site.  Yesterday, the person chose our OPLF shopping cart.  By the time that we had shut out the “card testing”, the fraudster had tested about 198 credit card numbers, and had found two of the cards to be valid.  (This means the card holder had not yet canceled the stolen card number.)

The service providers Woo and Stripe performed admirably in this incident.

How did we learn that the “card testing” was happening?  What did we do in response?  What permanent harm, if any, flowed from this incident?  What protective step might we have taken earlier?  Continue reading “What is “card testing”? What should you do about it?”

Posted on

How many Patent Center bugs and missing features can one encounter in a single e-filing task?

Today I had to pay an Issue Fee.  Let’s see how many Patent Center bugs and missing features I encountered in a single e-filing session in Patent Center, trying to pay an Issue Fee. Try to guess how many bugs and missing features were encountered. Continue reading “How many Patent Center bugs and missing features can one encounter in a single e-filing task?”

Posted on

Patent Center is not ready, and PAIR cannot be shut down tonight

click to enlarge

Just now I logged in at Patent Center and tried to view my outgoing correspondence.  I was greeted with a big red error message saying Search Limit Reached.  This is bug number CP178.  I opened EBC ticket number 1-843318724.   EBC agent 50 checked with the Patent Center team and reported back that this is a feature, not a bug.  This feature blocks data mining, he explained.  Continue reading “Patent Center is not ready, and PAIR cannot be shut down tonight”

Posted on

Counting down to the USPTO’s shutdown of PAIR and EFS-Web

Readers will recall that originally the USPTO was firm in its commitment to a shutdown of PAIR and EFS-Web at 11:59 PM on November 7, 2023 (blog article).

Readers will also recall that with less than two hours remaining before the close of business on November 7, the USPTO blinked and did not shut down PAIR and EFS-Web that day (blog article).  Instead, the USPTO postponed the shutdown of PAIR and EFS-Web by four business days.  The shutdown got postponed to 11:59 PM today, November 14.

Yes, the USPTO has firmly stated today is the day that it will shut down PAIR and EFS-Web.  This will happen at 11:59 PM tonight.

Posted on

USPTO leadership has taken corrective action

On November 5, 2023, I predicted (blog article) that the USPTO leadership would take corrective action in response to the situation that EBC would often tell a caller that the way to overcome a bug in Patent Center was to go back and do the task using PAIR or EFS-Web.  And my prediction has turned out to be correct.  USPTO leadership has indeed taken corrective action about this situation.  Continue reading “USPTO leadership has taken corrective action”