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Tech support failure at the Assignment Branch

(Update:  the USPTO did fix the defect, but it took three months, and the USPTO did not do me the courtesy of letting me know, see blog article.)

This past Monday, February 5, 2024, was the big day that the USPTO launched its Assignment Center.

The USPTO failed to do any customer-side alpha or beta testing prior to launch day, despite having been invited to do so on November 12, 2023 (blog article).

When the USPTO belatedly revealed some of its training materials on January 29, 2024 (blog article), I predicted (see it here) that it would turn out that USPTO’s software developers had failed to handle correctly any PCT application that had been filed in a Receiving Office other than RO/US.

Sure enough, when the USPTO launched its Assignment Center on February 5, my prediction was fulfilled.  It was impossible to record an assignment against any PCT application that had been filed in a Receiving Office other than RO/US.

The Assignment Branch lists two ways to get tech support for bugs in Ass. Center.  A first way to get tech support is to send an email to assignmentcenter@uspto.gov .  I did that on Monday, February 5.  Four days have passed and nobody at the USPTO has answered that email.  Nor, during those four days, did anybody at the USPTO fix the bug reported in that email.

A second way to get tech support is to place a telephone call to the Assignment Branch at +1-571-272-3350.  I did that bright and early on Tuesday, February 6 (blog article).  I waited on hold for some twenty minutes, eventually reaching a human being who claimed to be wholly unable to provide tech support, but who offered to “open a ticket”.  So I received ticket number 1-849780117.  Three days have passed and nobody at the USPTO has gotten back to me on that ticket.  Nor, during those three days, did anybody at the USPTO fix the bug reported in that ticket.

Bright and early on Tuesday, February 6, I left a voice mail message for the manager of the Assignment Branch, a Joyce R. Johnson.  I left a detailed voicemail message.  Three days have passed and she has not returned my call.  Nor, during those three days, did anybody at the USPTO fix the bug reported in that voicemail message to the manager.

 

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Maybe USPTO will clarify the “DOCX safeguard”

The urgent question outstanding for those who file utility patent applications at the USPTO is, are they stuck with no choice but to pay the $400 penalty to preserve the safe and trusted legacy PDF filing path, or is there any chance that the “DOCX with auxiliary PDF” path might present an acceptable level of professional liability risk so that the client could avoid the $400 penalty?  Maybe the USPTO will clarify this.  Continue reading “Maybe USPTO will clarify the “DOCX safeguard””

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Three days left to get in your numbers for the 2023 Toteboards

Three days from now will be the end of your opportunity to get your numbers in for the 2023 Toteboards (blog article).

So far we have the following results:

    • For the Trademark toteboard, we have 27 responses accounting for 6321 trademark registrations.
    • For the US plant patent toteboard, we have 5 responses accounting for 137 US plant patents.
    • For the US design patent toteboard, we have 20 responses accounting for 2111 US design patents.
    • For the US utility patent toteboard, we have 22 responses accounting for 11531 US utility patents.

If you have not already gotten your numbers in, now is the time to do it (blog article).

 

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No responsiveness from the Assignment Branch on defect in Assignment Center

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(Update:  there is still no responsiveness three days later, see blog article.  Further update:  the USPTO finally fixed this in May of 2024 but did not do me the courtesy of letting me know, see blog article.)

The Assignment Branch is failing to provide acceptable tech support for its new Assignment Center.  Continue reading “No responsiveness from the Assignment Branch on defect in Assignment Center”

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Unauthorized Practice of Law by the USPTO – sample assignments

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Ownership of property is a matter of state law, not federal law.  Indeed for countries that are not the US, ownership of property is a matter of the law of the country involved. In the face of this, the USPTO has no business giving out legal advice about language to use in a patent assignment or trademark assignment. Continue reading “Unauthorized Practice of Law by the USPTO – sample assignments”

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A first unanswered letter from the USPTO – Patent Center EBC tickets

On October 12, 2023 I sent an email to USPTO Commissioner Udupa containing a list of fifteen EBC trouble tickets that relate to bugs in Patent Center (see email), asking her to let us know the open-or-closed status of those EBC trouble tickets.  We did not hear back.  This was in preparation for our in-person meeting with Commissioner Udupa about Patent Center that was going to take place on October 18.  On October 17, the day before the in-person meeting, Commissioner Udupa emailed us (see email) to report that she was “completing her full review” not only of those fifteen EBC trouble tickets but also a group of 350 EBC trouble tickets relating to Patent Center, that she hoped to discuss with us the following day in the in-person meeting.  During the in-person meeting, she did not provide the results of her review.

So on November 17, 2023, USPTO Commissioner Udupa received this letter.  It reminded her that we still hoped to hear back from her on the status of the first fifteen EBC trouble tickets, and on the status of the 350 EBC tickets that she told us about on October 17 2023.

More than two months have passed with no response from Commissioner Udupa.  Here is my conclusion, as predicted here:

If we were to fail to hear back from Commissioner Udupa in response to this letter, I think it would be reasonable to conclude that she is tacitly admitting that she was wrong when she said the EBC gets back to people about EBC tickets about Patent Center.  If we were to fail to hear back from Commissioner Udupa in response to this letter, I think it would be reasonable to conclude that she is tacitly admitting that we were correct when we told her that the EBC has never, not even once, gotten back to people about EBC tickets about Patent Center.

 

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Training and system design fails at the USPTO

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It is as if the USPTO actively wishes to punish applicants for making the choice to use DAS instead of shipping a physical certified copy of a priority document.  What I will now describe is a training fail for the USPTO’s Office of Patent Application Processing, along with a system design fail by the USPTO’s software developers.  Continue reading “Training and system design fails at the USPTO”