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Being alerted when a vehicle enters your driveway

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If I am in my house and I hear a certain chime, it tells me that a vehicle has entered the driveway.  I find this to be very convenient.  Maybe this is during the day and it lets me know that a UPS truck or Fedex truck is arriving.  Or maybe it is in the evening and it lets me know that the expected dinner guests are arriving.  Either way, I can bestir myself and head down to the front door and greet the arriving visitor with a bit of advance warning.  How does it work, you might wonder?  I will tell you.  The photograph above right helps to explain how it works.  Continue reading “Being alerted when a vehicle enters your driveway”

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Time to switch to an EV

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In a weird way I got lucky.  Fifteen months ago, two things happened:

  • an inattentive driver smacked into the back of my ICE car, totaling it (and thankfully not injuring anybody), and
  • a client of my firm that had left some bills unpaid for a very long time happened to pay its bills rather unexpectedly.

I then paid cash for an electric vehicle. Continue reading “Time to switch to an EV”

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Working out the evils in the variants of the USPTO’s DOCX adhesion contract

(Update:  it is time for you, dear reader to consider signing another letter.  See blog posting.)

Earlier today I posted the dismaying realization that Patentcenter lies about the DOCX file that you uploaded (blog article).

This has a very disappointing interplay with the adhesion contract that the USPTO people have had in mind for the people who file DOCX patent applications at the USPTO.  We are now on our third variant of the adhesion contract, and arguably this most recent variant is far worse than either of the previous two variants.  Continue reading “Working out the evils in the variants of the USPTO’s DOCX adhesion contract”

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Patentcenter lied in the ack receipt about the DOCX file that I uploaded

(Update:  it is time for you, dear reader, to consider signing another letter.  See blog posting.)

Now I have seen with my own eyes what others have reported.  Until I saw it myself I could not be sure.

Yes, it really is true that Patentcenter sometimes lies about what exactly the document is that the filer uploaded to Patentcenter.  The Acknowledgment Receipt sometimes lies.

This is a profoundly serious matter.

For what it’s worth, so far as I can see, the lying happens only with DOCX files.   It looks to me like the lying does not happen with PDF files.

It seems that customers who use Patentcenter are going to need to scrutinize their ack receipts very closely between now and such time as the Patentcenter developers get this corrected.

Continue reading “Patentcenter lied in the ack receipt about the DOCX file that I uploaded”

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Our telephone company VoIP.ms sets an example again

Around five years ago, our firm migrated nearly all of our telephone services to a company called VoIP.ms.  Not once have we regretted it, and again and again we have seen reasons to feel good about this choice.  Today we see this company once again setting an example.  Here is what they have done:

At VoIP.ms we are deeply touched by the situation impacting the Ukrainian people. As a token of solidarity, effective today, VoIP.ms will be absorbing all costs for call termination to Ukraine until at least March 31st, 2022. Our goal with this small action is to show our support for those directly and indirectly affected by the situation taking place in the country, with the aim that not only we can help to keep communication alive to the region but most importantly to also spark a bit of hope in these very difficult times.

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Which Searching Authorities charge the most for bad sequence listings?

(Corrected “ISA/IB” typo to “ISA/IN” thanks to an alert commenter, see below.)

When you file a PCT application that contains a genetic sequence or an amino acid sequence, you are supposed to provide it in a particular computer-readable format.  This makes sense, of course.  For one thing, the various patent offices around the world want to load such sequence listings into searchable databases.  The idea is to facilitate searching so that if later somebody tries to get a patent on some sequence, and if the sequence is not novel, the lack of novelty can be quickly ascertained.  A second reason for this is that if the PCT application tries to claim a sequence, the International Searching Authority can readily carry out a novelty search of that claimed sequence. 

But what happens if the PCT applicant fails to provide the sequence in the computer-readable format?  Or what happens if the PCT applicant purports to provide the sequence in the computer-readable format, but the data file is not formatted correctly?  In such cases, the International Searching Authority is permitted to impose a Late Furnishing Fee.  

Which raises the question — which ISAs charge the most?  Which ISAs charge the least?  Continue reading “Which Searching Authorities charge the most for bad sequence listings?”

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Questions and answers that were left over from the first four sessions of the SLW webinar series

Hello readers.  As most of you know, the Schwegman firm and the SLW Institute are hosting a remarkable fifteen-webinar series that make up a comprehensive Patent Cooperation Treaty training program.  The first four sessions have taken place, and there are eleven more sessions to go.  It is not to late to join — click here.  

During the webinars, the attendees type in questions.  I tried to answer some of the questions, but with 750 or more attendees, the number of questions was so great that I was not able to get to all of the questions during the scheduled time.  I have collected the leftover questions from the first four sessions, and have tried to answer as many as I can make sense of, in this blog article.  Happy reading!  Continue reading “Questions and answers that were left over from the first four sessions of the SLW webinar series”