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<p class="MsoNormal">I believe I have contacted that email address before. If I recall correctly, it took a bit of back and forth but the issue was resolved within two months.
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">Erin D. Geraghty<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">Paralegal<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:7.5pt"><span style="font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:#17479E">_____________________________________________ <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:#17479E">FisherBroyles, LLP<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:#17479E">1625 K Street, NW, Suite 550, Washington, DC 20006 USA<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:#17479E">direct: +1-443-386-7495<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><u><span style="font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:#17479E"><a href="mailto:Erin.Geraghty@fisherbroyles.com"><span style="color:#467886">Erin.Geraghty@fisherbroyles.com</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></u></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:#17479E"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"><a href="http://www.fisherbroyles.com/"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:#17479E">www.fisherbroyles.com</span></a></span><u><span style="font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:#17479E"><o:p></o:p></span></u></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:#17479E"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:#17479E;text-transform:uppercase">Atlanta | Austin | Boston | Charlotte | Chicago | Cincinnati | Cleveland | Columbus | Dallas | Denver | Detroit | Houston | London
| Los Angeles | Miami | MILWAUKEE | Naples | New York | Palo Alto | Philadelphia | Princeton | Salt Lake City | Seattle | Washington, DC | wilmington<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:#17479E">The information contained in this e-mail message is only for the personal and confidential use of the intended recipient(s). If you have received this communication
in error, please notify us immediately by e-mail, and delete the original message.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:#17479E">We will never use email to notify you of a change to any bank account details we have already provided to you. If you receive any email purporting to come from
this firm which seeks to do this, then please contact us immediately by telephone and do not act on it or reply to it. We cannot accept responsibility for any loss if you do not follow these instructions.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">From:</span></b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"> Patentpractice <patentpractice-bounces@oppedahl-lists.com>
<b>On Behalf Of </b>Benjamin Keim via Patentpractice<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Thursday, October 9, 2025 1:31 PM<br>
<b>To:</b> For patent practitioners. This is not for laypersons to seek legal advice. <patentpractice@oppedahl-lists.com><br>
<b>Cc:</b> Benjamin Keim <ben@newportip.com><br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: [Patentpractice] astonishing slowness from "helpaia"<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">5 months! Did the USPTO pay your firm for two months of extension?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;mso-ligatures:standardcontextual">-Ben</span><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">From:</span></b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"> Patentpractice <<a href="mailto:patentpractice-bounces@oppedahl-lists.com">patentpractice-bounces@oppedahl-lists.com</a>>
<b>On Behalf Of </b>Carl Oppedahl via Patentpractice<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Thursday, October 9, 2025 9:01 AM<br>
<b>To:</b> For patent practitioners. This is not for laypersons to seek legal advice. <<a href="mailto:patentpractice@oppedahl-lists.com">patentpractice@oppedahl-lists.com</a>><br>
<b>Cc:</b> Carl Oppedahl <<a href="mailto:carl@oppedahl.com">carl@oppedahl.com</a>><br>
<b>Subject:</b> [Patentpractice] astonishing slowness from "helpaia"<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p>Wow. You can send an email to <a href="mailto:helpaia@uspto.gov">helpaia@uspto.gov</a> and if you do, it won't get ignored. It will actually get answered. But it will take five months to get the answer. Here is how it went.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>We paid the Issue Fee in one of our cases on March 3, 2025, and as so often happens these days, it was
<b><i>after I paid the Issue Fee</i></b> that somebody in the Issue Branch got all wound up about how supposedly our drawings were defective. A Form M327 arrived on March 7, 2025, telling me that two of my figures were defective.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>Never mind that the Application Branch people whose job it is to pipe up if something is wrong with the drawings did not find anything wrong with the drawings back when they were deciding whether or not to mail out a Filing Receipt (back in August of 2022).<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>Never mind that the USPTO people who do 18-month publication did not find anything defective about the drawings and were able to carry out the 18-month pub.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>Never mind that when the Examiner examined the case, the Examiner was able to figure out whether or not the case was patentable without the quality of the drawings getting in the way.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>But anyway yes once we had paid the Issue Fee, somebody in the Issue Branch found a real or imagined defect in two or our figures. And I filed a detailed response (later the same day, on March 7, 2025) explaining why there was nothing wrong with those figures.
(I suspected it was a problem arising out of the fact that the USPTO system mangles drawings when placing them into IFW, because the drawings were perfectly clear in SCORE but were mangled in IFW.) And many weeks passed with no word back from anybody at the
USPTO as to whether our case was going to go abandoned (as threatened) due to the supposedly defective drawings.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>This was back in the days when you could pick up the phone and dial the AAU and it would only take an hour or two to reach a human being. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p>Anyway whatever the problem was, I had phoned up the AAU twice (the second time on April 7, 2025) and the AAU persons had not meaningfully assisted. And so on April 30, 2025 I sent the email. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p>(As an aside, I cannot now recall how I stumbled upon <a href="mailto:helpaia@uspto.gov">helpaia@uspto.gov</a> as a place to go to try to get help.)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>Anyway, I guess whoever the nameless person was in the Issue Branch who had gotten wound up about this, that person maybe eventually paid attention to my detailed response and decided to release the hold on the to-be-issued case, because the patent did eventually
issue on June 18, 2025.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>Anyway, here is the astonishing thing. Today, October 9, 2025 I received a response to the "helpaia" email. It came from
<a href="mailto:helpaau@uspto.gov">"helpaau@uspto.gov"</a> which is not the same email address, but it quoted my April 30 email so it is clear it was in response to my email that I sent to "helpaia".<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>There are several learning opportunities floating around in this odd sequence of events.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>First, apparently <a href="mailto:helpaia@uspto.gov">helpaia@uspto.gov</a> is a real thing and does really reach human beings somehow. I suppose every practitioner should add this to their bag of tricks in case it might some day be helpful.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>Second, we note that it took more than five months for this email to elicit a response. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p>Have you used helpaia? Did it work for you?<o:p></o:p></p>
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