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“Captain May I?” in Hague Agreement applications

The childhood game of “Captain May I?” (Wikipedia article) irritated me greatly as a child.  I had little patience for it.  The premise of the game is that words do not mean what they seem to mean.  In this game, a string of words which on its face is an instruction to take three steps forward does not actually count as an instruction to take three steps forward unless it is followed up by the query “Captain May I?” which is in turn followed by an automatic grant of permission by the “captain”.  The conceit of the game is that any and all requests to the captain for such permission are automatically granted, so that after a few minutes of play one sort of assumes that because the requests are always granted, there should not really be a need to ask.  But the “gotcha” in the game is that you must ask, even though the asking is pointless.

Today I was gobsmacked to learn that the USPTO plays “Captain May I?” with US designations of Hague Agreement applications (international design applications).  If as a child you were to get tricked and forget to ask “Captain May I?” the consequences would merely be that you return to the starting line of the game.  But as a design applicant if you get tricked and forget to ask “USPTO May I?” the consequence is, it seems, that you lose your priority claim.  I am not making this up.  Continue reading ““Captain May I?” in Hague Agreement applications”

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Yet more Patentcenter bugs – the e-signature block

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(Update:  the USPTO fixed this bug about a year after after the USPTO was told about it.)

37 CFR § 1.4(d)(2)(i) says exactly what a virgule signature (the USPTO calls it an “S-signature”) is supposed to look like.  The Rule says that what the signer must type between the two virgules (the two “slashes”) is at least one letter or Arabic numeral.  Notably the Rule does not say that what must appear between the two virgules is the signer’s name.  The signer is only required to provide his or her name “in printed or typed form preferably immediately below or adjacent the S-signature”.  Which means that the USPTO got it wrong in the web-based issue fee payment form in Patentcenter, quoted at right. Continue reading “Yet more Patentcenter bugs – the e-signature block”

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Two more Offices join the WIPO DAS system

I am delighted to report that two more Offices have announced their participation in the DAS system.  These are the Italian Patent and Trademark Office and the Superintendence of Industry and Commerce of Colombia (the Colombian patent and trademark office).  Here are details of the Depositing-Office participations:

  Colombia is a Depositing Office? Italy is a Depositing Office?
National industrial design applications yes since August 28, 2020 yes since October 1, 2020
National patent applications yes since August 28, 2020 yes since October 1, 2020
National trademark applications   yes since October 1, 2020
National utility model applications yes since August 28, 2020 yes since October 1, 2020
PCT international applications filed
With the office as a PCT receiving office		 yes since August 28, 2020 yes since October 1, 2020

 

One striking aspect of this is the participation of RO/CO and RO/IT as Depositing Offices.  This reminds us that among the IP5, the straggler Receiving Offices are RO/JP, RO/KR, and RO/US.  

Note, too, the ever-increasing participation of Offices in DAS with respect to trademarks.

This also offers a reminder that these two Offices offer utility model protection.

Here are details of Colombia’s Accessing-Office participation:

  Colombia is an Accessing Office?
Hague international applications yes since August 28, 2020
National industrial design applications yes since August 28, 2020
National patent applications yes since August 28, 2020
National trademark applications yes since August 28, 2020

 

Who is the most trendy, modern and up-to-date Colombian intellectual property firm?  Be the first to provide to me an application number, filing date, and DAS access code for a design application, a patent application, a utility model application, and an RO/CO application, and I will recognize your status as the most trendy, modern and up-to-date in Colombia.  (I will blur part of the application number in the Certificates of Availability that I obtain and post.)

Who is the most trendy, modern and up-to-date Italian intellectual property firm?  Be the first to provide to me an application number, filing date, and DAS access code for a design application, a patent application, a trademark application, a utility model application, and an RO/IT application, and I will recognize your status as the most trendy, modern and up-to-date in Italy.  (I will blur part of the application number in the Certificates of Availability that I obtain and post.)

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USPTO being helpful about IDSs that did not get considered

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Beginning a couple of years ago, some very nice people in the Issue Branch at the USPTO have promoted patent quality, and have promoted science and the useful arts, and have saved us as patent practitioners from a lot of stress and malpractice risk, by looking out for IDSs that have not been considered.  In the past, we as patent practitioners had to pester the Examiners to consider such IDSs.  Those very nice people in the Issue Branch at the USPTO do the pestering for us nowadays.  I am guessing I will never get to learn the names of those very nice people, and will never have the opportunity to thank them directly.  All that I can do, I guess, is thank them in this blog.  Maybe someone at the USPTO who knows who those nice people are can print out this blog article and show it to them.  Continue reading “USPTO being helpful about IDSs that did not get considered”

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What if you were not happy with service from the Application Assistance Unit?

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From time to time I will encounter a patent practitioner who feels let down by the USPTO’s Application Assistance Unit.  Indeed every now and then I will run into a practitioner who will say, surely in jest, that they feel the phrase “Application Assistance Unit” is an oxymoron.  In my own experience, it is quite rare that the AAU fulfills its promise. A chief use case for the AAU is the filer who received a Notice indicating that there was some real or imagined flaw in an inventor’s declaration, or in an application data sheet, or in a power of attorney, and that the document involved is being bounced due to its real or imagined flaw.  The Notice is invariably profoundly unhelpful and never actually comes out and says what exactly was supposedly wrong with the bounced document.  The Notice always says that if you want to know what exactly was supposedly wrong with the bounced document, you can get the answer by placing a telephone call to the AAU.  And in my experience, what never happens is the AAU actually answering the question.

So what can you do if you are not happy with how it went in your telephone call to the AAU? Continue reading “What if you were not happy with service from the Application Assistance Unit?”

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The price of privacy continues to be $100

Yes, if you feel the need to protect your privacy at the Trademark Office, the price continues to be $100.

Today the Commissioner for Trademarks granted another of my petitions asking that I not be required to reveal to Trademark Office employees where I sleep at night.  You can see the granted petition here.

 

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Using DOCX leads to delay in visibility in IFW

USPTO has made it plain that it really wants filers to file their US patent applications in Microsoft Word format, not as PDFs.  (USPTO expresses this wish by saying it wants patent applications to be filed in “DOCX” format, but of course there is no single “DOCX” format, there are many variants of DOCX and the only variant that USPTO handles correctly is the variant that Microsoft Word generates.)  There are many drawbacks to the way that the USPTO has implemented its handling of patent applications filed in a DOCX format, and one of them is that this can result in a long delay in the visibility of the newly filed patent application in IFW.  It is yet another reason to simply file in PDF format.  Continue reading “Using DOCX leads to delay in visibility in IFW”

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“Signed in” status in Patentcenter is inconsistent between browser windows

It is commonplace that if one has Patentcenter open in two or more browser windows in the same browser, the “signed in” status will be inconsistent between the various browser windows.

Because the problem is intermittent, one assumes that this is not merely some coding error that can be fixed consistently by means of a simple correction of one line of code.  Instead there are probably weird “race conditions” between internal processes within various USPTO systems, or synchronization failures between various USPTO systems.  The problem is probably a very deep and difficult-to-fix problem rather than a simple fix-a-line-of-code problem.

I expect this is a “failure to scale” problem.  As more users log ino and use Patentcenter, the various systems that are supposed to work together to provide a seamless user experience end up failing to keep properly in touch with each other.

This is trouble ticket number CP36.