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<p>A big smile here for me, mixed with a wry grimace.</p>
<p>First I guess the big-smile part. Yes, for those just joining us
on this listserv thread, what happened was:</p>
<ul>
<li>I posted a gripe shortly before September 22 on the
e-Trademarks listserv to point out that it was very clear that a
particular customer-facing USPTO system (Trademark Center) had
not been beta-tested competently, given the recent
identification of a certain conspicuous flaw in the system that
would surely have been eliminated long ago had competent beta
testing been undertaken.</li>
<li>A USPTO person connected with TC wrote to me privately
explaining that part of why the beta testing had been so poor
was that the PRA effectively caps the number of reviewers at
"nine" by making it very burdensome for an agency to use "ten"
or a higher number as the number of reviewers.</li>
<li>I posted about this PRA "nine/ten" problem in the listserv on
September 22.</li>
<li>David (who does not do PRA for a living; he spends his time
serving clients as a patent practitioner) then replied on
September 22 on that listserv that the PRA has a lightweight way
to get a clearance for surveys and the like.</li>
<li>We now see that on September 15, the USPTO posted a Federal
Register notice to make use of this lightweight way to get a
clearance for surveys and the like.</li>
</ul>
<p>When I first saw what David posted (quoted below), I wondered
whether there might be some cause-and-effect going on. I wondered
whether one of the USPTO lurkers on the e-Trademarks listserv who
saw David's listserv reply about the lightweight way to get PRA
clearance might have passed this information along to somebody
else at the USPTO, leading to the USPTO making use of the
lightweight way.</p>
<p>No, sorry, the time line doesn't work for that. The USPTO
activity to make use of the lightweight way to get PRA clearance
had already taken place some time before September 15.</p>
<p>So now we turn to the wry grimace part. What we now have in
front of us us that yes, somebody at the USPTO who does PRA for a
living did already know about the lightweight way to get PRA
clearance, and did actually make use of it on USPTO's behalf to
help with some USPTO survey or review or beta-test activity.
Making it <i><b>extra sad </b></i>that the USPTO people who
could have done competent beta testing of Trademark Center capped
their beta-tester count at "nine" out of a lack of awareness of
this lightweight way to get PRA clearance that <i><b>somebody
else</b></i> at the USPTO was already familiar with.</p>
<p>The natural next question is, <i><b>what is</b></i> the USPTO
survey or review or beta-test activity for which this Federal
Register notice was published? Well, of course the FR notice
doesn't say. But according to the FR notice, you can drop an
email to a particular USPTO person named in the FR notice and that
person will spill the beans on it. So thanks to David, I have
just now dropped the email to that USPTO person. I imagine that
later today I will hear from this USPTO person with the answer.
(My prediction is that it will turn out to be the surveys that pop
up when you finish a Patent Center task and it asks you (among
other things) how badly PC failed you in your most recent PC
task.)</p>
<p>Meanwhile, returning to the wry grimace part, we are reminded of
the profound missed opportunities that happen again and again when
the USPTO goes out of its way to avoid engaging in any meaningful
way with the practitioner community on things like beta testing
of customer-facing USPTO systems. Way back when the USPTO was
developing what is now Trademark Center, what could have happened
(but did not) was genuine engagement between the USPTO developers
of TC and the practitioner community (here, the
thousand-practitioner membership of the e-Trademarks listserv).
Back then, had such genuine engagement occurred, a USPTO developer
could have mentioned that (supposedly) the beta-test group size
was limited (by the PRA) to "nine". We could have responded "oh,
but you know there is lightweight way to get PRA clearance".
Maybe after that, the USPTO developers could have done competent
beta testing of TC. And now in 2025, maybe TC could have been a
system that all could be proud of.</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 10/2/2025 4:29 PM, David Boundy via
Patentcenter wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CAJwugqEx6vXxvY57CptN2hdh1t0Hrtp2ZiPKoVRePxgf_Uz8SQ@mail.gmail.com">
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<div>About a week ago, Carl noted that the PTO was doing a
crappy job of beta testing because some moron in the Office of
General Counsel misunderstood the Paperwork Reduction Act and
thought the number of reviewers was capped at nine. I
replied that the PRA has a lightweight way to get a clearance
for surveys and the like.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Well, the PTO filed the application necessary to fix
this. <a
href="https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/09/15/2025-17765/agency-information-collection-activities-submission-to-the-office-of-management-and-budget-for"
moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/09/15/2025-17765/agency-information-collection-activities-submission-to-the-office-of-management-and-budget-for</a></div>
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