Ant-Like Persistence

The USPTO is developing its Patentcenter system which it intends will eventually replace EFS-Web and PAIR.  Eventually USPTO plans to shut down EFS-Web and PAIR and the only way that customers of the USPTO will be able to accomplish the functions formerly carried out through EFS-Web and PAIR will be by means of Patentcenter.  From the outset, USPTO has said that one of its stated requirements for Patentcenter is that it must offer at least all of the functions of EFS-Web and PAIR.

Patentcenter is not yet released from beta test, and rightfully so, given that many features of EFS-Web and PAIR are not yet implemented in Patentcenter, and given that many things in Patentcenter do not work correctly or do not work at all.  (See Patentcenter Trouble Tickets and Patentcenter Feature Requests.)  During beta test, a natural question is, in what way or what ways should the people at the USPTO who are responsible for developing Patentcenter interact with those beta testers? 

The USPTO has made clear that it feels it should not have to respond in any direct way to any of the beta testers when they report bugs or missing features.  Continue reading “How should USPTO interact with its Patentcenter beta testers?”

One of the design goals of Patentcenter is to provide the functions of EFS-Web.  In EFS-Web, the most frequently carried-out tasks are:

• file a new patent application
• start a new follow-on submission (a subsequently filed document)
• open a saved submission to continue the submission process

So let’s go on a treasure hunt, shall we?  Where can we find these three tasks, somewhere on the main menu bar of Patentcenter?  The answer is, not one of these three tasks can be found at the place where you would guess it to be based upon the wording of that main menu bar.  This is Trouble Ticket CP34. Continue reading “Patentcenter uses wrong words on links”

There are many things that Palm reveals to people inside of the USPTO, that PAIR and Patentcenter do not reveal to applicants.  Here are some of those things that Patentcenter should reveal to applicants. Continue reading “Patentcenter should reveal application status”

Broadly speaking, Patentcenter does extremely poorly on validations.  The designers of Patentcenter would merely need to have looked at ePCT to see how to do validations correctly.  Here are examples of validations and how to do them right and how to fail to do them, and how to do them wrong. Continue reading “Validations in Patentcenter”

Get rid of or correct or improve the “boy who cried wolf” nag message in Patentcenter about paying fees.

This is Feature Request FR25. Continue reading “Get rid of or correct or improve the “boy who cried wolf” nag message about paying fees”

When an ADS turns out to be unsigned, or not correctly signed, or not signed by a practitioner, it leads to a cascade of problems.  It often takes months or a lot of money, or both, to fix the problems.   It would be trivially easy for Patentcenter to check an uploaded computer-readable Form PTO/AIA/14 (Application Data Sheet) such as we see at right, for a signature.  But Patentcenter does not do so.

Patentcenter should check an uploaded ADS for a signature and should display warnings as needed.  This is Feature Request FR24. Continue reading “Patentcenter should check uploaded ADS for a signature”

When a filer uploads Form PTO/AIA/14 (Application Data Sheet), Patentcenter should carry out validations.  As mentioned here, Patentcenter should validate priority claims against DAS.  This blog article points out that Patentcenter should validate the “non-inventor applicant” excuse field.

This is Feature Request FR23.  

Continue reading “Patentcenter should validate the “non-inventor applicant” excuse field”