Yes, I realize the subject line doesn’t actually narrow things down very much, in the sense that many USPTO announcements are poorly worded in one way or another. But this one is breathtaking in the extremity of its poor wording. See if you can catch it:
Planned maintenance
Customer Interaction Platform Contact Center Transition
The USPTO will transition our contact centers to a new platform beginning at midnight ET on Monday, October 28 and ending at midnight ET on Tuesday, October 29.
Users may experience longer wait times during the transition period.
(emphasis in original.)
So I put it to you. Will this transition take place for a twenty-four hour period that amounts to the entirety of Monday? Or will this transition take place for a twenty-four hour period that amounts to the entirety of Tuesday?
Nobody, and I mean nobody, ever makes the mistake that the USPTO made in the announcement that is the subject of this blog article. But the USPTO managed to make the mistake.
Anybody who wishes to avoid ambiguity about midnight knows to simply avoid counting anything from midnight itself. See the Wikipedia article:
As the dividing point between one day and another, midnight defies easy classification as either part of the preceding day or of the following day.
When in doubt, goes the simple rule, count the event from your choice of either 11:59 PM or 12:01 AM. So for example the USPTO could have written:
The USPTO will transition our contact centers to a new platform beginning at 12:01 AM ET on Monday, October 28 and ending at 11:59 PM ET on Monday, October 28.
Or the USPTO could have written:
The USPTO will transition our contact centers to a new platform beginning at 12:01 AM ET on Tuesday, October 29 and ending at 11:59 PM ET on Tuesday, October 29.
So which is it?
Well, I can only guess. A simple way to try to guess is, which day would be more disruptive to the fee-paying customers of the USPTO? During any given work week, Monday is usually a more hectic day for the USPTO’s customers than Tuesday. So I am going with Monday for this one.
Based on past USPTO performance, safe bet is that there will be delays both days as well as Wednesday morning.
And does this mean, if they are undertaking work on the contact center, that we will have “longer than average wait times” when we call to complain that a) the Assignments Tab is still not functional in Patent Center after nearly three months or b) that we can’t log in/get booted out of PCenter every few minutes, and thus can’t stay logged in long enough to file an application in fewer than seven attempts?