It will be recalled that the Patentcenter listserv has secured an hour-long meeting with USPTO’s Chief Information Officer, Jamie Holcombe, on Thursday, March 23. This will run from 11AM to noon Eastern Time. I reported this to you in a blog article dated February 7, 2023. There are two developments about this. Continue reading “The upcoming meeting with USPTO about Patentcenter redux”
Replacing a screen of a smart phone
Loyal readers will recall that recently I did a large number of test welds to measure welding currents generated by my new inexpensive stick welder (blog article). I had been using my smart phone to log real-time current measurements via Bluetooth from a clamp-on DC ammeter (blog article). Part way through the large number of test welds, I was astonished to see that my smart phone had powered itself down. I tapped the power button and coaxed the phone back to life and completed my current logging activities, and eventually figured out why the phone had so mysteriously and abruptly powered itself off. A tiny bit of hot steel from one of my test welds had flown several feet and had landed on the glass screen of the phone, and had melted a small crater in the glass. You can see the crater, which is less than one-fourth of a millimeter in diameter, in the photomicrograph above. After about a day, cracks had traveled from this crater across the full expanse of the glass. I realized I would need to learn how to replace the screen. This blog article describes it. Continue reading “Replacing a screen of a smart phone”
DAS Depositing Offices that charge fees
I have consolidated the information about fees charged by DAS Depositing Offices here.
March 17 version of Patentcenter breaks things that worked in previous version
The March 17 version of Patentcenter was clearly not tested before release. It breaks many things that worked properly in the pre-March 17 version. This has given rise to at least ten new trouble tickets in the Patentcenter Trouble Ticket page. Continue reading “March 17 version of Patentcenter breaks things that worked in previous version”
Recorded ePCT webinars are now available for viewing
Hello readers. Some will recall that I am now three lectures into a sixteen-lecture series of webinars about ePCT. I am pleased to report that I was successful in recording each of those first three webinars. The recordings are now available for viewing! Continue reading “Recorded ePCT webinars are now available for viewing”
Pixel waste in content-free icons in the “modernized look and feel” Patentcenter
Today the USPTO rolled out its “modernized look and feel” version of Patentcenter. It contains lots of new content-free “icons” that take up valuable screen space, wasting pixels and forcing users to scroll further down to reach what they need. Continue reading “Pixel waste in content-free icons in the “modernized look and feel” Patentcenter”
A boundary-value programming mistake in Patentcenter
One of the easiest things to get wrong, for some programmers in some programming languages, are “boundary values”. Here we see a classic example of a boundary-value mistake by the developers of Patentcenter. Continue reading “A boundary-value programming mistake in Patentcenter”
USPTO corrupts credit card expiration dates in FM
Hello folks. Here is a warning that I saw today in a USPTO system when I was paying a government fee in Financial Manager:
Credit/Debit Card Expiration Dates
Due to a recent system upgrade, some card expiration dates may have been converted to an incorrect month for cards stored within Financial Manager. …
Try to guess, dear reader, what the next few words were. For example, maybe the next few words explained that the USPTO was working to restore the expiration dates to their correct values, but that this might take a day or two, and they apologize for the inconvenience. Continue reading “USPTO corrupts credit card expiration dates in FM”
Watch an automatic time change!
As we know, the “springing forward” of clocks for Daylight Saving Time happens at about 2AM. This “radio controlled” wristwatch does the DST adjustments automatically. I happened to be awake when it happened just now, and you can see a video recording of the automatic adjustment carried out by this wristwatch.
Filing at the International Bureau and Daylight Saving Time
It’s that time of year again. The time of year when it is important to keep track of the fact that Daylight Saving Time is different in Switzerland from the way it is in the United States. Continue reading “Filing at the International Bureau and Daylight Saving Time”