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<p>If you want to get some fraction of a group to do something, the
correct way to do it is to target that fraction. The absolutely
wrong way to do it is to carpet-bomb the entirety of the group,
cluttering the in-boxes of the rest of the group.</p>
<p>I received this email today. It hammers away at how I must have
been using email as my two-factor authentication to log in at the
USPTO, and that I need to set up and use some other form of
two-factor authentication.</p>
<p>The problem with this is that <i><b>I have never even once in my
life used email as my two-factor authentication to log in at
the USPTO. </b></i>Not even once.</p>
<p>There are, I expect, some people to whom the USPTO ought to have
sent this scolding email. Probably the way to pick a person to
receive this email is to pick people who actually did use email as
their two-factor authentication at least once since the first
announcements that the USPTO made about this. Meaning the
fraction of USPTO customers that have, within the past few months,
done this supposedly very bad thing (using email as their
two-factor authentication). </p>
<p>And then perhaps a week or two later, sending followup emails to
the smaller fraction of customers who used email again as their
two-factor authentication despite having been scolded against it
in the previous scolding email.</p>
<p>The practical result would be that with each succeeding followup,
fewer and fewer scolding emails would need to be sent.</p>
<p>This targets the scolding at the people who need it (assuming the
USPTO is correct in its view that email is bad as a way to do
two-factor authentication).</p>
<p>But the absolute wrong thing to do is to scold the tens or likely
hundreds of thousands of customers who don't need scolding at the
present time. A first example of people who don't need scolding
at all is people like me who have never even once done the
(supposedly) bad thing. A second example of people who don't need
scolding now is the tens or likely hundreds of thousands of
customers <i><b>who have already done</b></i> what the USPTO
wanted them to do, namely have already migrated away from email
and over to some other form of two-factor authentication.</p>
<p>It is like "the boy who cried wolf". When the USPTO carpet-bombs
its entire customer base like this, the USPTO virtually ensures
that tomorrow or next week or next month, some urgent message will
get disregarded by the customers given that so many previous
supposedly urgent messages were inappropriate and were not urgent
at all for the particular recipient.</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 9/25/2025 9:40 AM, U.S. Patent and
Trademark Office wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:0100019981886f55-4d8fc2a9-2599-4ab5-bf21-2e93fcdfdd87-000000@us-east-1.messagingfabric.com">
<title> Time to secure your USPTO account
</title>
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November 1 deadline
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<p>Having trouble viewing this
email? <a
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<h1>USPTO Alert</h1>
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<h2>Strengthen your account
security</h2>
<p class="gd_p">Effective <strong>November
1</strong>, you can no
longer verify your identity
using email when you log
into our systems, including
Patent Center, Trademark
Center, and TEAS. <a
href="https://links-1.govdelivery.com/CL0/https:%2F%2Fwww.uspto.gov%2Fabout-us%2Fusptogov-account%2Fsecure-authentication%3Futm_campaign=subscriptioncenter%26utm_content=%26utm_medium=email%26utm_name=%26utm_source=govdelivery%26utm_term=/1/0100019981886f55-4d8fc2a9-2599-4ab5-bf21-2e93fcdfdd87-000000/6iTWYRcDRvJCCvsIrzw_UhZIMV4xDoOpd5d8K7Wutng=424"
target="_blank"
rel="noopener"
moz-do-not-send="true">Switch
to a safer authentication
method</a> soon to avoid
login issues and be better
protected against phishing
and other cybersecurity
attacks. </p>
<p>If you need assistance,
please call the <a
href="https://links-1.govdelivery.com/CL0/https:%2F%2Fwww.uspto.gov%2Flearning-and-resources%2Fsupport-centers%2Fuspto-contact-center-ucc%3Futm_campaign=subscriptioncenter%26utm_content=%26utm_medium=email%26utm_name=%26utm_source=govdelivery%26utm_term=/1/0100019981886f55-4d8fc2a9-2599-4ab5-bf21-2e93fcdfdd87-000000/S7f1RyHJXo1gdxgqq4TBpJ27V4zym1U6wIQBP4LXWBc=424"
target="_blank"
rel="noopener"
moz-do-not-send="true">USPTO
Contact Center</a> at
800-786-9199 (toll free) or
571-272-1000 (local). If you
have questions about
configuring Okta Verify for
your USPTO.gov account, you
can send an email to <a
href="mailto:OktaVerify.Help@uspto.gov" moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">OktaVerify.Help@uspto.gov</a>.</p>
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