Making a circuit breaker panel less dangerous

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This blog article talks about a situation that comes up frequently in all of our daily lives — removing the front cover of a circuit breaker panel and working on the panel.  The main point of today’s article is that in the circuit panel shown at right, we recently added the two yellow caps shown at A. This makes the circuit breaker panel less dangerous. Continue reading “Making a circuit breaker panel less dangerous”

D-Link IOT cloud evaporates

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I was astonished to hear from D-Link that it has shut down its cloud that makes its smart plugs work.  Pictured at right is one of the three DSP-W110 smart plugs that I purchased from D-Link in 2016.  I still own the plugs and one of the plugs still has a device plugged into it — a table lamp.

But as of today, I cannot turn the lamp on or off using the app on my smart phone.  As of today, the D-Link smart plugs don’t do anything any more.  Continue reading “D-Link IOT cloud evaporates”

Red night lights

Many readers know that during World War II, military aircraft used red internal lighting.  Pilots used red flashlights to view maps while in flight.  The reason for using red is that if ordinary full-spectrum (white) light had been used, this would spoil the “night vision” (vision using rods instead of cones).  Red light does not harm night vision as much as white light.  This blog article talks about using night lights around the house that are red instead of white.  Continue reading “Red night lights”

USPTO blinked on the non-DOCX surcharge

(Correction — I am told that both AIPLA and IPO also contacted the USPTO privately in recent weeks about this problem.)

It looks like maybe the USPTO blinked on the non-DOCX surcharge problem, at least a little.  What forced the USPTO to blink was a letter from 117 patent practitioners pushing back on a December 20, 2022 Federal Register notice.  The notice maintained and doubled down on January 1, 2023 as a date that all US patent filers would face a harsh choice — incur substantial risks of losses of patent rights due to the DOCX program, or pay $400 to be able to file a patent application in a way that eliminated those substantial risks.  The only visible pushbacks on this December 20, 2022 FR notice were:

      • the above-mentioned letter signed by 117 practitioners, and
      • ceaseless personal efforts by Bradley Forrest, a partner at the Schwegman firm.

In this blog article I briefly describe the state of play on the DOCX program as it now appears.
Continue reading “USPTO blinked on the non-DOCX surcharge”

USPTO responses will be timely on Tuesday, January 3

Monday, January 2 will be a federal holiday in the District of Columbia.  This means the USPTO will be closed on Monday, January 2.  This means that any response or action that would have been due at the USPTO on Saturday, December 31,  or Sunday, January 1, or Monday, January 2 will be timely if carried out on Tuesday, January 3.

The US Postal Service will likewise be closed on Monday, January 2.

USPTO responses will be timely on Tuesday, December 27

Monday, December 26 will be a federal holiday in the District of Columbia.  This means the USPTO will be closed on Monday, December 26.  This means that any response or action that would have been due at the USPTO on Saturday, December 24,  or Sunday, December 25, or Monday, December 26 will be timely if carried out on Tuesday, December 27.

The US Postal Service will likewise be closed on Monday, December 26.