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<p>A banner item that recently got posted <i><b>in Patent Center</b></i>
by the Patent Center developers says this:<br>
</p>
<blockquote>
<p><b>ID.me is currently available in MyUSPTO.gov for Trademark
filers only.</b> Patent Center will be ready to support the
ID.me verification process by the end of June, 2024. <br>
</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I sort of can't figure out what the Patent Center developers are
trying to say here. For one thing, I can't figure out why the
Patent Center developers would post something in Patent Center
that relates to trademark activity. <br>
</p>
<p>For a second thing, there is no such thing as "myUSPTO.gov".
There is no DNS entry for the domain name "myuspto.gov". I guess
they mean "my.uspto.gov". Out of curiosity I surfed over to
my.uspto.gov and saw this banner item that recently got posted by
the my.uspto.gov developers:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>ID.ME is available for Trademark filers only. Patents has not
implemented the digital identity proofing process at USPTO.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I am sort of baffled in my effort to guess what the problem is
for which these banner items are (supposedly) the solution. Here
is my best guess ...</p>
<p>It is true that on the trademark side, there had been some USPTO
postings about how if you want to be able to do TEAS things, you
have to prove you are a human being, except if you are already a
registered patent practitioner, you get a pass on having to prove
that you are a human being to be able to do TEAS things. The TEAS
developers never quite came out and said what is going on here,
but I guess they figured if you are a registered patent
practitioner, then at some time in the past you sort of proved you
were already a human being. I guess this is whole "prove you are
a human being or we won't let you use TEAS any more" is part of
the effort by the people in the Commissioner for Trademarks office
to combat the trademark filings from a certain foreign country,
that sort of thing.</p>
<p>But that does not quite explain what the problem is for which
these banner items are (supposedly) the solution. On the patent
side, we do have this business of "sponsoring" a paralegal and
only if the paralegal has been "sponsored" by a patent
practitioner is the paralegal able to do stuff as a logged-in
person in Patent Center. If I recall correctly, one thing that
happens when the registered practitioner does the clicking around
to "sponsor" the paralegal is that the practitioner is required to
certify that the paralegal is an actual human being. </p>
<p>Maybe what is going on is that the Commissioner for Patents
office people have decided that they don't trust the registered
practitioner to be telling the truth when they say that the
paralegal that they are "sponsoring" really is a human being?
They want the paralegal to be forced to do the ID.me thing, so
that the ID.me service provider has checked out the "really a
human being" status of the paralegal?</p>
<p>Or maybe what has been going on is that patent-sponsored
paralegals have been phoning up the EBC, begging to please be
allowed to be put through the wringer that is ID.me? They see the
trademark-sponsored paralegals who get to have the honor and fun
of being put through the ID.me wringer, and they feel left out?</p>
<p>Anyway, I am hoping somebody who is more plugged into this
"sponsor-a-paralegal" stuff can shed some light on this.</p>
<p>Carl<br>
</p>
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