The weather reports for the Washington area call for “six to ten inches of snow” between now and noon on Tuesday. So the USPTO will be formally closed on Tuesday, February 17. This means that if you needed to file something on the 17th to satisfy some USPTO due date, it will be timely if filed on Wednesday the 18th.
Alert reader Michael Nye reminds us that even if a federal holiday or a snow day gives us an extra day to respond to some USPTO due date, this does not undo any possible erosion of accumulated Patent Term Adjustment that could follow from a postponement of the filing of a response. He is quite right about this.
By the way do you like getting advance notice of “snow days” at the USPTO? If so, consider subscribing to this blog! And encourage all of your friends to subscribe to this blog.
Is there a time that the OPM declared today a snow holiday? MPEP 510(I) states, “When the USPTO is open for business during any part of a business day between 8:30 a.m. and 5:00 p.m., papers are due on that day even though the Office may be officially closed for some period of time during the business day because of an unscheduled event.”
Is there some USPTO web page that confirms that the USPTO was closed for the entire day today?
Good question. You’d think that the USPTO would make it easy to find this information. Is there any reference to a closure on their homepage? No. Is it on their Twitter feed? No. Is it on the EFS-Web Announcements page? No. Is it on the USPTO News & Updates page? No. Is it on the About Us page? No.
All I can find is an OPM notice:
http://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/snow-dismissal-procedures/current-status/