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<p>Same here. I always regret when I forget</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 10/9/2025 1:17 PM, David Boundy via
Patentpractice wrote:<br>
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<div dir="ltr">Ditto. Once I got a Notice of Abandonment six
months after I replied to a Missing Parts on the same day.
Look at the IFW. As sorted, applicant-filed stuff sorts
BELOW (older than) examiner-filed stuff on the same day. So,
like Patent Lawyer, no matter how trivial the change or how
irritated I am at a STOOOPID request, I always wait a day.</div>
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<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Thu, Oct 9, 2025 at
1:36\u202fPM Patent Lawyer via Patentpractice <<a href="mailto:patentpractice@oppedahl-lists.com" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">patentpractice@oppedahl-lists.com</a>>
wrote:<br>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">Carl,</span><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">Your
story reminded me of one of my practice tips (to
myself).
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">You
said <u>you
<span style="color:black">filed a response the
same day you received the notice</span></u><span style="color:black"> (Form M327).</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:black"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:black">In my
experience, it is those same-day responses that
get lost at the PTO. They don\u2019t seem to be able
to match an incoming applicant paper as a response
to an outgoing PTO paper of the same date. It
does not matter what I titled the paper (I think
there\u2019s a required title). This problem predates
Patent Center.
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:black"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:black">I have
had this problem with missing parts notices
(especially if they want more than fees), and
these after-issue-fee or after-allowance drawing
problems. Even if they take the fees (which they
always do), the do not match the papers. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">So,
as pissed off as I get from these after-issue-fee
drawing notices (especially in US national phase
applications), and as easy and therapeutic as it
might be to respond, if I remember, I wait at
least one day before filing a response.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"> </span></p>
<div style="border-width:1pt medium medium;border-style:solid none none;border-color:rgb(181,196,223) currentcolor currentcolor;padding:3pt 0in 0in">
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:black">From:
</span></b><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:black">Patentpractice
<<a href="mailto:patentpractice-bounces@oppedahl-lists.com" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">patentpractice-bounces@oppedahl-lists.com</a>>
on behalf of Patentpractice Patentpractice <<a href="mailto:patentpractice@oppedahl-lists.com" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">patentpractice@oppedahl-lists.com</a>><br>
<b>Reply-To: </b>Patentpractice Patentpractice
<<a href="mailto:patentpractice@oppedahl-lists.com" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">patentpractice@oppedahl-lists.com</a>><br>
<b>Date: </b>Thursday, October 9, 2025 at 12:02
PM<br>
<b>To: </b>Patentpractice Patentpractice <<a href="mailto:patentpractice@oppedahl-lists.com" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">patentpractice@oppedahl-lists.com</a>><br>
<b>Cc: </b>Carl Oppedahl <<a href="mailto:carl@oppedahl.com" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">carl@oppedahl.com</a>><br>
<b>Subject: </b>[Patentpractice] astonishing
slowness from "helpaia"</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
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<p>Wow. You can send an email to <a href="mailto:helpaia@uspto.gov" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">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.</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.</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).</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.</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.</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.</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. </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. </p>
<p>(As an aside, I cannot now recall how I stumbled
upon <a href="mailto:helpaia@uspto.gov" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">helpaia@uspto.gov</a>
as a place to go to try to get help.)</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.</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" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">"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".</p>
<p>There are several learning opportunities floating
around in this odd sequence of events.</p>
<p>First, apparently <a href="mailto:helpaia@uspto.gov" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">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.</p>
<p>Second, we note that it took more than five months
for this email to elicit a response. </p>
<p>Have you used helpaia? Did it work for you?</p>
<p> </p>
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