Bluesky: @oppedahl.com
One of the many reasons why the USPTO’s DOCX initiative presents professional liability risks arises from USPTO’s use of an ever-changing “black box engine” to render DOCX files into PDF files. The black box engine is by now up to at least version 19. Continue reading “One reason why USPTO’s DOCX initiative presents professional liability risks”
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.
Has your Chargepoint Home Flex EV charger lost its green halo, as shown at right? Is the halo white instead of green? If so, you may find this blog article to be of interest.
Do you sometimes pick ISA/EP when you file a PCT application? Is it a source of frustration that the communications from ISA/EP arrive only slowly, via postal mail, rather than electronically? Would you like to learn how to set things up with an electronic EPO mailbox so that you can receive your ISA/EP communications electronically instead of by slow postal mail? Continue reading “Learn how to receive ISA/EP correspondence electronically rather than by postal mail”
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”
The USPTO sent out email messages today reporting what it calls a “Data Security Incident”. It turns out that the USPTO, which promised it would keep the “where you sleep at night” domicile addresses of trademark applicants safe and secure, instead revealed all of the “where you sleep at night” addresses in all of the USPTO’s APIs and bulk data products by which data miners collect data from the USPTO, over a period stretching from February of 2020 to March of 2023.
Astonishingly, CIO Jamie Holcombe tells us that he “fixed” the problem. Continue reading “USPTO breaks its promise about protecting “where you sleep at night” domicile addresses”
General Motors announced today that it will partner with the Tesla supercharging network. This comes on the heels of Ford’s announcement of a couple of weeks ago that it had done so.
You can see a blog article in a writing style much like mine that talks about these developments. It predicts that more US EV makers will follow suit. As time goes on, fewer and fewer cars will use the big, awkward, heavy CCS1 plug for fast charging, if this blog article turns out to be correct.
(Update: nine comments got filed.)
This has been a busy week for Federal Register notices by the USPTO that relate to the ill-fated DOCX patent application filing initiative. We already knew about two Federal Register notices about this:
Now comes a third Federal Register notice:
In this blog article I briefly discuss this third FR notice. In a later blog article I will discuss this third FR notice in greater detail. Continue reading “Time to file comments on DOCX yet again”
There are many reasons why the USPTO’s “auxiliary PDF” approach, which the USPTO hopes would induce reluctant DOCX filers to do DOCX filing, is unacceptable. (See USPTO blinks a second time on auxiliary PDF with DOCX filing.) Here are some of the reasons. Continue reading “Deficiencies in the “auxiliary PDF” approach for DOCX filing”
(Corrected as to the name of the movie.)
A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down, says a beloved song in the movie Mary Poppins. In the case of the ill-conceived DOCX initiative at the USPTO, the spoonful of sugar offered by the USPTO to try to induce filers to swallow the bitter-tasting DOCX initiative has been what it calls the “auxiliary PDF”. The USPTO has now blinked for a second time on the auxiliary PDF. Continue reading “USPTO blinks a second time on auxiliary PDF with DOCX filing”