USPTO still not out from under mountain of paper

Well, the USPTO is still not out from under its mountain of paper due to its massive system crash on May 14.

Readers will recall the massive system crash on Wednesday, May 14.  What will stick in your mind is that May 14 is the day that you had to use USPS’s Click-n-Ship system to print a Priority Mail Express label so that you could file a US patent application by taking it to your local post office to be received in person by a postal service employee.  You and several thousand other patent practitioners who would have normally used EFS-Web to do your filing, leading to a mountain of paper at the USPTO.

From our perspective, here is the USPTO’s progress at getting out from under the mountain of paper.

When the USPTO systems crashed on May 14, we found ourselves with two filings that had to be done that very day.  One was the filing of a new patent application.  The other was the filing of an RCE.

The new application did reach the USPTO — we know that.  We know it because the USPS tells us the Priority Mail Express package did get delivered to the USPTO on Friday, May 16.  And we know it because the USPTO charged our credit card the following Monday May 19.  We know that because we saw it in Financial Profile (which provided the application number for this new application).

But even after the passage of more than a week and a half, there is no sign of the new application in Private PAIR.  Nor have we seen the Return Post Card.

We sent the RCE by ordinary mail dropped in a local post office mailbox.  The RCE reached Alexandria on Saturday, May 19.  And in the USPS tracking system the package has been “available for pickup” ever since.  But the USPTO has not, apparently, picked it up.  This despite the passage of more than a week.  We have not seen the Return Post Card.  Nor have we seen any sign of action in Private PAIR.

Did you file anything by hand or through the Postal Service on Wednesday May 14?  If so, I’d be grateful if you could post a reply with the progress of your filing.