[E-trademarks] Notice-and-comment on Assignment Center

[David Boundy]

As the PTO is required to do every three years, the PTO is requesting
notice-and-comment on recording of assignments.

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/06/17/2024-13275/agency-information-collection-activities-submission-to-the-office-of-management-and-budget-omb-for
Comment deadline is August 16, 2024.

That means its the opportunity to register formal comment on Assignment
Center

The goal of a Paperwork Reduction Act comment period is burden estimates.
(The idea is that if an agency has to track its budget of paperwork burden,
then the agency has an incentive to self-police.  It's a statute that only
derives power from embarrassment.  Which at the PTO makes it pretty
ineffective.  But it's the best tool we've got.)  The PTO estimates that
filling out and filing the Recordation Cover Sheet (not the assignment per
se, the recordation cover sheet) and storing the result (reporting back to
client) takes 30 minutes.

*Question 1.*  Do we have a consensus view on how much extra time that
buggy/incomplete Patent Center adds?  Ten minutes each?  (Having to fill
out the fields by plain old typing, instead of from the XML template or
some similar address book, and then the time to file corrective paperwork
when you find a typo later, and the bizarre rules for which digits you
include in a PCT serial number and which you have to leave out, the
impossible-to-know rules for when you use standard xx/xxx,xxx punctuation
and when you don't, etc.)

*Question 2.*  I do no trademark work, so I have no idea what idiocy you TM
folks are encountering, or what the incremental burden might be.  I need a
volunteer to write a couple paragraphs about teh TM side of Assignment
Center.  I imagine this is only about a page.

*Question 3.*  Is 30 minutes about right for the *whole chain *of finding
who the inventors are, mothering the assignment paperwork to get it all
signed, then preparing the recordation cover sheet and filing it and
recording the result?  My gut feel is closer to 90, because of the
difficulty of chasing down that last straggler inventor to sign the damn
thing.

*Question 4.*  If you want to comment, be my guest.  This is one time when
it's essential to *not* guess "conservatively."  Estimate as
down-the-middle and objectively as you can.  For examples, the DOCX
comments are at
https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewDocument?ref_nbr=202309-0651-002
-- but this is a LOT simpler -- one paragraph to one page will be great.
For an *excellent* example, Carl wrote a burden workup for DOCX
https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/DownloadDocument?objectID=135640900 --
Carl's is spot on for form -- give estimate numbers and support them.
Rick Neifeld's letter and and Vince Garlock's on behalf of AIPLA both miss
the point -- both of them complain about the substance of the rule, but
don't give estimate numbers.  Brian Batzley's for AIPLA is halfway between
-- it says the number should be "much higher."  It's a LOT better if you
GIVE A NUMBER and show why it's the best plausible guesstimate.  The goal
of this letter is to give the best estimate number you can, and support it
as best you can.  Sometimes the best support you can give is "in my
professional opinion, based on my experience preparing and filing similar
papers, I estimate..." and that's good enough.  The PTO doesn't have
experience to match yours!

-- 


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*David Boundy *| Partner | Potomac Law Group, PLLC

P.O. Box 590638, Newton, MA  02459

Tel (646) 472-9737 | Fax: (202) 318-7707

*dboundy at potomaclaw.com <dboundy at potomaclaw.com>* | *www.potomaclaw.com
<http://www.potomaclaw.com>*

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