[E-trademarks] [EXT] TEAS is broken?

[Richard Schafer]

The reputational cost to the PTO for the poor quality of their IT systems is immense.

While practitioners can at least advise the client on how to work around the issues, U.S. clients may see this is yet another way in which the federal government is failing. Foreign clients will see these errors as another example of how the PTO is failing to achieve its primary function.

The PTO expends countless resources on encouraging pro se applicants and designing their systems to make them more usable by pro se applicants, but those IT systemic failures are no doubt driving those same pro se applicants away from pursuing protection for their inventions and trademarks.

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>

From: E-trademarks <e-trademarks-bounces at oppedahl-lists.com> On Behalf Of Carl Oppedahl via E-trademarks
Sent: Sunday, April 7, 2024 9:42 PM
To: For trademark practitioners. This is not for laypersons to seek legal advice. <e-trademarks at oppedahl-lists.com>
Cc: Carl Oppedahl <carl at oppedahl.com>
Subject: Re: [E-trademarks] [EXT] TEAS is broken?


Thank you for posting.  Yes imagine what an impression this makes for your foreign client.

I am now in a position where I did eventually succeed in finishing the application that I was trying to create.  And I sent the link to my client.

I worry that when my client clicks on the link, the client might see such a worthless error message.  If so, it would make a bad impression for the client.
On 4/7/2024 8:30 PM, Alex Butterman wrote:
I have a client in China that tried to sign a new application we sent her company and she complained about the same error about a few minutes before your email. She showed her screen as:

[cid:image001.png at 01DA89A5.502A9CB0]






Hopefully, this is now permanently fixed since I suggested she try again on Monday morning their time.




Alex Butterman
Partner
DUNLAP BENNETT & LUDWIG
211 Church St., SE; Leesburg, VA 20175
T: 703-777-7319 – BIO<https://www.dbllawyers.com/attorney/alex-butterman/>
[A blue and white logo    Description automatically generated]
This electronic message contains information from Dunlap Bennett & Ludwig PLLC and may be confidential or privileged. If you are not the intended recipient, any disclosure, copying, or use of the contents is prohibited. If you have received this e-mail in error, please notify us and delete the message without copying or disclosing it.

From: E-trademarks <e-trademarks-bounces at oppedahl-lists.com><mailto:e-trademarks-bounces at oppedahl-lists.com> On Behalf Of Carl Oppedahl via E-trademarks
Sent: Sunday, April 7, 2024 04:54 AM
To: for trademark practitioners <e-trademarks at oppedahl-lists.com><mailto:e-trademarks at oppedahl-lists.com>
Cc: Carl Oppedahl <carl at oppedahl.com><mailto:carl at oppedahl.com>
Subject: [EXT] [E-trademarks] TEAS is broken?


I tried to file a trademark application just now.  Here is the rather unhelpful error message that TEAS provided:

[cid:image003.png at 01DA89A5.502A9CB0]

Then I tried again, and the error message changed to this:

[cid:image004.png at 01DA89A5.502A9CB0]

I checked the USPTO system status page and it did not list any planned outage for today at this time.  Those two USPTO failures happened when I was using Chrome.  Then I tried the same thing in Edge, and this was the error message:

[cid:image005.png at 01DA89A5.502A9CB0]

I wonder if anybody is able to file a trademark application just now?


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://oppedahl-lists.com/pipermail/e-trademarks_oppedahl-lists.com/attachments/20240408/0f1a00d1/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image001.png
Type: image/png
Size: 42545 bytes
Desc: image001.png
URL: <http://oppedahl-lists.com/pipermail/e-trademarks_oppedahl-lists.com/attachments/20240408/0f1a00d1/attachment.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image002.png
Type: image/png
Size: 34793 bytes
Desc: image002.png
URL: <http://oppedahl-lists.com/pipermail/e-trademarks_oppedahl-lists.com/attachments/20240408/0f1a00d1/attachment-0001.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image003.png
Type: image/png
Size: 10816 bytes
Desc: image003.png
URL: <http://oppedahl-lists.com/pipermail/e-trademarks_oppedahl-lists.com/attachments/20240408/0f1a00d1/attachment-0002.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image004.png
Type: image/png
Size: 10981 bytes
Desc: image004.png
URL: <http://oppedahl-lists.com/pipermail/e-trademarks_oppedahl-lists.com/attachments/20240408/0f1a00d1/attachment-0003.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image005.png
Type: image/png
Size: 25308 bytes
Desc: image005.png
URL: <http://oppedahl-lists.com/pipermail/e-trademarks_oppedahl-lists.com/attachments/20240408/0f1a00d1/attachment-0004.png>