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Why the word “mobile” in that odd USPTO notice yesterday?

Yesterday the USPTO posted a very odd notice telling all of its customers who use Time-base One-Time Password apps for two-factor authentication that between now and May 1, 2022, they need to discard their existing Secret Code Number and get a new Secret Code Number.  As I blogged yesterday (blog article) the notice is strikingly close to being content-free, explaining almost nothing about what it is trying to say.  Alert reader Gerry Peters posted a comment to my blog article that made me realize that not only was the USPTO notice nearly content-free, but it also used the word “mobile” in an extremely awkward way.  Gerry pointed out that a succinct writer could simply have used the two-word phrase “authenticator app” throughout the USPTO notice, and that instead the writer went to the special point of inserting the word “mobile” no fewer than seven times into the notice, forming the three-word phrase “mobile authenticator app” all seven times.  

Gerry pointed out that most users of USPTO systems like PAIR and EFS-Web and Patentcenter and TEAS (all of which require the use of two-factor authentication) almost certainly do not log in on a mobile phone but instead log in on a desktop or notebook computer.  Gerry pointed out, correctly, that the everyday shorthand phrase that most people use as a substitute for the accurate but rather longer phrase “Time-base One-Time Password app” is simply the two-word phase “authenticator app”.  Gerry wondered whether the seven-time insertion of “mobile” into the phrase was merely a sort of nervous tic, a completely unnecessary addition of a throwaway word, or whether the three-word phrase seemingly so carefully constructed and so consistently employed from the top to the bottom of the USPTO notice might have some significance.  Maybe for example the need for users to go through this complicated process of discarding an existing Secret Code Number and getting a new Secret Code number is limited to that subset of users who use mobile devices for logging in at the USPTO?  

Having read Gerry’s comment, and having given the matter quite a bit of thought, I conclude two things.    Continue reading “Why the word “mobile” in that odd USPTO notice yesterday?”

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Why you are forced to do yet another setup of your USPTO authenticator app settings

Many of us use an authenticator app such as Authy or Google Authenticator as our way of doing two-factor authentication when logging in at the USPTO.  Many of us recall the USPTO crash of about a year ago (blog article), that forced us to do another setup of our USPTO authenticator app settings.  Now comes a strikingly content-free announcement from the USPTO that we must all do yet another setup of our USPTO authenticator app settings.  Why is it, exactly, that we must do this?  I think I figured it out.  Continue reading “Why you are forced to do yet another setup of your USPTO authenticator app settings”

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A reminder of a national embarrassment for the United States

Yes one looks at the headline for this blog article and one realizes that the headline does not narrow things down very much.  But I will guess that this particular embarrassment that I am about to touch upon is one that most of us in the US have not thought about for a long time, given so many other more recent national embarrassments.  But somehow it got into my head to reflect recently on the unenviable rankings that the US earns in the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment, with the acronym PISA.  Continue reading “A reminder of a national embarrassment for the United States”

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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.