<div dir="ltr"><div>As the PTO is required to do every three years, the PTO is requesting notice-and-comment on recording of assignments.</div><div> <a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/06/17/2024-13275/agency-information-collection-activities-submission-to-the-office-of-management-and-budget-omb-for" target="_blank">https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/06/17/2024-13275/agency-information-collection-activities-submission-to-the-office-of-management-and-budget-omb-for</a></div><div>Comment deadline is August 16, 2024.</div><div><br></div><div>That means its the opportunity to register formal comment on Assignment Center <br></div><div><br></div><div>The goal of a Paperwork Reduction Act comment period is burden estimates. (The idea is that if an agency has to track its budget of paperwork burden, then the agency has an incentive to self-police. It's a statute that only derives power from embarrassment. Which at the PTO makes it pretty ineffective. But it's the best tool we've got.) The PTO estimates that filling out and filing the Recordation Cover Sheet (not the assignment per se, the recordation cover sheet) and storing the result (reporting back to client) takes 30 minutes.<br></div><div><br></div><div><b>Question 1.</b> Do we have a consensus view on how much extra time that buggy/incomplete Patent Center adds? Ten minutes each? (Having to fill out the fields by plain old typing, instead of from the XML template or some similar address book, and then the time to file corrective paperwork when you find a typo later, and the bizarre rules for which digits you include in a PCT serial number and which you have to leave out, the impossible-to-know rules for when you use standard xx/xxx,xxx punctuation and when you don't, etc.)</div><div><br></div><div>
<b>Question 2.</b> I do no trademark work, so I have no idea what idiocy you TM folks are encountering, or what the incremental burden might be. I need a volunteer to write a couple paragraphs about teh TM side of Assignment Center. I imagine this is only about a page.<br></div><div><br></div><div><b>Question 3.</b> Is 30 minutes about right for the <i>whole chain </i>of finding who the inventors are, mothering the assignment paperwork to get it all signed, then preparing the recordation cover sheet and filing it and recording the result? My gut feel is closer to 90, because of the difficulty of chasing down that last straggler inventor to sign the damn thing.<br></div><div><br></div><div>
<b>Question 4.</b>
If you want to comment, be my guest. This is one time when it's essential to <b>not</b> guess "conservatively." Estimate as down-the-middle and objectively as you can. For examples, the DOCX comments are at <a href="https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewDocument?ref_nbr=202309-0651-002" target="_blank">https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewDocument?ref_nbr=202309-0651-002</a>
-- but this is a LOT simpler -- one paragraph to one page will be great. For an <b>excellent</b> example, Carl wrote a burden workup for DOCX <a href="https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/DownloadDocument?objectID=135640900" target="_blank">https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/DownloadDocument?objectID=135640900</a> -- Carl's is spot on for form -- give estimate numbers and support them. Rick Neifeld's letter and and Vince
Garlock's on behalf of AIPLA both miss the point -- both of them complain about the substance of the rule, but don't give estimate numbers. Brian Batzley's for AIPLA is halfway between -- it says the
number should be "much higher." It's a LOT better if you GIVE A NUMBER
and show why it's the best plausible guesstimate. The goal of this
letter is to give the best estimate number you can, and support it as
best you can. Sometimes the best support you can give is "in my
professional opinion, based on my experience preparing and filing
similar papers, I estimate..." and that's good enough. The PTO doesn't
have experience to match yours!
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