[Patentcenter] More Patent Center unannounced degradation

[Randall Svihla]

I suppose the USPTO's response will be that they can't possibly be expected to make Patent Center compatible with all outside software and this is not a problem anyway because all of those functions that are automated by the outside software can be performed manually by staff at the law firm.

Randall S. Svihla
NSIP Law
Washington, D.C.


From: Patentcenter <patentcenter-bounces at oppedahl-lists.com> On Behalf Of Andrea R. Jacobson via Patentcenter
Sent: Wednesday, November 8, 2023 9:20 AM
To: patentcenter at oppedahl-lists.com
Cc: Andrea R. Jacobson <arj at mcgarrybair.com>
Subject: Re: [Patentcenter] More Patent Center unannounced degradation

We are having issues with our docketing software as well related to their docketing and download capabilities and verifying of data. They had sent an email on Monday that there was going to be update to the console so it would use Patent Center and not Private PAIR, but when I went to do so yesterday it was not available. Turns out they had to pull the update because of recent changes to Patent Center.

From: Patentcenter <patentcenter-bounces at oppedahl-lists.com> On Behalf Of Carl Oppedahl via Patentcenter
Sent: Tuesday, November 7, 2023 6:26 PM
To: patentcenter at oppedahl-lists.com
Cc: Carl Oppedahl <carl at oppedahl.com>
Subject: Re: [Patentcenter] More Patent Center unannounced degradation


Richard, you must be mistaken.  Patent Center has 100% of the functionality of PAIR.
On 11/7/2023 4:11 PM, Richard Schafer via Patentcenter wrote:
Coincidentally, I received a notice from Claimmaster Software today warning me, “Unfortunately, a fairly recent update of Patent Center appears to have been intentionally designed to prevent automated web scraping.”  Once Private PAIR shuts down they will be unable to fully automate downloading of bibliographic data and IFW documents as they could from Private PAIR and until recently, from Patent Center. The best they can do is teach me a semi-manual import tool to obtain the data for creating Office Action response shells and filling out PTO forms.

That’s yet another last-minute degradation of Patent Center. There’s no mention of this change on the Patent Center information page. Nor can I find any rule or even guidance against web scraping.

Best regards,
Richard A. Schafer | Schafer IP Law
P.O. Box 230081 | Houston, TX 77223
M: 832.283.6564 | richard at schafer-ip.com<mailto:richard at schafer-ip.com>

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