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Better and worse garage door keypads

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Why is it that nearly every homeowner chooses to install the dopey garage door keypad shown at right?   I suppose the answer is that most of the time, the homeowner is not the person who actually makes the choice.  The choice is usually made by the company that installs the garage door opener.  The company that installs the garage door opener does not know any better — this is the only kind of keypad that they know how to install.  It is the only kind of keypad that is made by the company that makes the garage door opener.  But this keypad is dopey.  It only has one code number.  If you give out the code number to somebody, say a plumber, and later the plumber does not really need access any more, what are you going to do?  Change the code number?  Sure, except that now you have to somehow communicate the new code number to all of the other people who still need to have access.  They now all have to memorize the new code number.  There must be a better way.  And of course there is a better way.  Continue reading “Better and worse garage door keypads”

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The latest on the Commissioner for Trademarks wanting to know where trademark applicants sleep at night

(Update:  the case is now before the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit)

(Update:  a letter has been sent.  See blog article.)

It is by now a couple of years ago that the Acting Commissioner for Trademarks promulgated a rule requiring each trademark applicant to reveal to the Trademark Office where he or she sleeps at night.  Not simply the state where he or she sleeps at night, not just the city where he or she sleeps at night, but the exact street address where he or she sleeps at night.  I call this the “where you sleep at night” rule.  Yesterday there was yet another development on the “where you sleep at night” rule.  Continue reading “The latest on the Commissioner for Trademarks wanting to know where trademark applicants sleep at night”

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Now #63 in adult and continuing education

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Amazon maintains sales statistics on every large or small thing that a person could possibly want to know about its book sales.  My newly released book The 2022 Schwegman Advanced PCT Training: the presentation slides has apparently just now reached a ranking of number 63 in Amazon’s category of adult and continuing education.  As you can see in the screen shot at right, this book trails two positions below a study guide for a commercial drivers license test.  

I think that this tells you not so much about a large number of copies of my book being purchased, but instead about the relatively small number of books that people purchase that fall within this category of adult and continuing education.

For context, Amazon says that among books generally, my newly released book has a “best sellers” ranking in position 112,026.  

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Time of day at IB returns to normal for US filers

On March 13 I blogged that US filers filing documents at the International Bureau needed to pay extra close attention to what time it is in Switzerland.  The reason is that in the US, Daylight Saving Time happened on March 13.  But it did not happen on that day in Switzerland.  This meant that for the past two weeks, a US-based filer in (for example) the Mountain Time zone would be able to e-file in the IB as late as 5PM and still get a same-day filing date.  This differed from the usual drop-dead time of 4PM.

Today (March 27, 2022) is the day that Daylight Saving Time happens in Switzerland. The consequence of this is that the time difference between the US filer’s time zone and the time at the IB is back to normal.  So for a US-based filer in the Mountain Time zone, the drop-dead time returns today to the usual 4PM.

This change affects for example a US-based filer filing a PCT application at the RO/IB, and it affects the US-based filer filing a design application in the IB’s Hague Agreement e-filing system.  It also affects the US-based filer filing documents at the IB relating to the Madrid Protocol, such as for example a Subsequent Designation.

Most readers of my blog will appreciate that the correct terminology is not “Daylight Savings Time” but “Daylight Saving Time”.

Many readers will also appreciate that EU has been trying for the past two years to get rid of this clock-changing.  There have also been largely feckless efforts in various states of the US to bring an end to this clock-changing. I personally would like it if the place where I am located, and the places where patent and trademark offices are that I care about, would all bring an end to clock-changing.

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A very good doorstop, or two PCT training books

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What weighs more than two kilograms (more than 4½ pounds), is more than four centimeters thick (more than an inch and a half), costs about twenty dollars, contains two of every presentation slide from my recent fourteen-hour webinar series of advanced training on the Patent Cooperation Treaty, and can serve as an extremely functional doorstop?  The answer is, of course, two of the books at right, duct-taped together.  Continue reading “A very good doorstop, or two PCT training books”

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How to calculate SHA-512 hashes in Microsoft Windows

In two recent blog articles (here and here) I have called out the USPTO for programming Patentcenter so that its Acknowledgment Receipts list false information about what a filer uploaded in Patentcenter.  The practitioner wishing to independently check such things will thus be interested to know how to calculate a SHA-512 hash (Wikipedia article, what the USPTO calls a “message digest”) of a PDF or DOCX file on the practitioner’s hard drive. One way to do this is with a command-line utility within Microsoft Windows. Continue reading “How to calculate SHA-512 hashes in Microsoft Windows”

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Patentcenter Ack Receipt lies

Today in a particular patent application I uploaded two PDFs in Patentcenter.  The Ack Receipt says I uploaded five PDFs (which is not true).  When I try to match up the three non-existent PDFs that the Ack Receipt says I uploaded (which I did not) with the three supposedly corresponding PDFs in IFW, the file names do not match and the SHA-512 hashes (message digests) do not match and the file sizes do not match.  Nothing about this part of the Ack Receipt is true.  Continue reading “Patentcenter Ack Receipt lies”

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Getting a VPN

The other day I heard from a friend of mine that somebody they know “has a living situation in which she needs a VPN” and the question was, could I recommend “a good VPN”.  These questions always drive me crazy.  I will explain why.  Continue reading “Getting a VPN”