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Pretty much the only periodical that I have made time to read diligently in recent years is the Economist. A recent article in the Economist introduced me to ikigai, which is yet another of many Japanese words that Westerners have appropriated and onto which much meaning has been grafted beyond the original Japanese meaning. Continue reading “Thinking about ikigai”
Keep in mind that most locations in the US will turn off daylight saving time today (November 6, 2022), but today is not the day that Switzerland will turn off daylight saving time. (Switzerland turned off DST a week ago.)
Those who are filing documents at the International Bureau — documents that need a same-day filing date — should check to make sure they know what time it is in Switzerland as of today.
The main point here is that for a US filer, everything is now “back to normal”. Whatever time zone offset a US filer is accustomed to between his or her time zone and Geneva, that offset is back to normal.
ePCT will tell you what time it is in Switzerland.
Yesterday I posted a blog article asking readers to let me know which ePCT topics they want me to teach sooner than other topics. I listed fifteen topics. I provided a very long and tedious questionnaire by which readers could indicate their personal rankings of the fifteen topics, as “urgent” or “average urgency” or “not urgent”. Fifty-four readers responded, for which I am quite grateful. Here you can see what they said: Continue reading “Which ePCT topics you want me to teach sooner than others!”
Update! You can see the results here.
Hello dear readers. How time flies! It was a mere ¾ of a year ago that I announced (blog article) my plans to teach fifteen webinars on ePCT topics (as distinguished from PCT topics). Now I really plan to get moving on these webinars. I should mention that these webinars will be free of charge, thanks to sponsorship from WIPO. Now what I ask is that readers please tell me which ePCT topics they want me to teach sooner than others. Continue reading “Which ePCT topics do you want me to teach sooner than others?”
In my blog article of October 12, 2022, I discussed the imminent shortened three-month response periods that will face trademark applicants starting on December 1, 2022. Toward the end of the article I described what I saw as two “gotchas”, namely ways that an applicant could end up with an abandoned trademark application if the applicant were to choose to try to tough it out and hold back from paying the $125 extension-of-time fee. Alert reader Michael Brown points out that depending upon the level of kind-heartedness in your Examining Attorney, you might not end up running afoul of the “gotchas”. Continue reading “Exploring the “gotchas” in the imminent shortened three-month trademark response period”
Keep in mind that Switzerland will turn off daylight saving time today, October 30, 2022. Those who are filing documents at the International Bureau — documents that need a same-day filing date — should check to make sure they know what time it is in Switzerland as of today.
For US filers, keep in mind that the US will not turn off DST today. The US will turn off DST a week from now, on November 6, 2022.
US filers who are getting ready to file a document at the IB should thus pay close attention during this next week to what time it is in Switzerland.
Most readers of my blog will appreciate that the correct terminology is not “Daylight Savings Time” but “Daylight Saving Time”.
The practical effect for most US filers is that for the next week, you get an extra hour to e-file. For example if you are in the Mountain Time Zone, normally you rush to file by 4PM if need a same-day filing date at the IB. But for the next week you can file as late as 5PM and you will still get a same-day filing date at the IB.
A US patent that issued recently (August 9, 2022) made me smile for several reasons. This is a truly remarkable patent, as I will discuss. Continue reading “A recently issued patent that will expire 51 years after its filing date”
Yes, folks, Saturday, December 3, 2022 will be the day. Starting December 3, you will only get three months to respond to a USPTO trademark Office Action instead of the usual six months. This article hopefully answers some of your questions about this change. Continue reading “December 3 will be the day — three months for trademark responses to Office actions”
Hello folks. I am astonished to see the news (see court document) that a court case that had been grinding its way through the courts on for more than five years is apparently very close to being settled. The result of the settlement will, it seems, lead to many people and firms that have paid fees to the Pacer system will get a lot of their fees refunded to them. Our firm has paid many thousands of dollars to the Pacer system over the years. I am sure many other firms can say the same.
I heard about this from alert listserv member Curtis Prescott (Linkedin page). Thank you Curtis!
(Update: on January 6, 2023, the Director indirectly responded to these two letters. You can read about it here.)
Hello readers. You will recall that a few days ago I urged you to consider signing two letters to USPTO’s Director Kathi Vidal (blog posting, October 7). Both letters have now been signed and have been sent to Director Vidal.
The chief person who made these letters possible is Krista Jacobsen, a patent practitioner in Silicon Valley. She drafted the letters and finalized them with suggestions from professional colleagues. Many practitioners signed the letters. Today she sent them to the Director. I hope readers will join me in being grateful to Krista for this work.
Of course what also made the letters possible is the many patent practitioners who signed the letters.
Let’s hope that Director Vidal will respond to Krista with good news of corrective steps that the USPTO will take to address the problems that are highlighted in the two letters.