[E-trademarks] bad things about Assignment Center

[Carl Oppedahl]

I guess we have already plowed this ground several times by now ...

is it just me, or are there lots of bad things about Ass Center?

/*Address book still does not work. */Ass Center keeps teasing me by 
suggesting that I ought to be able to drag and drop a "name" from my 
address book (in MyUSPTO) into a recordation project.  But as of right 
now, even after months of arm-wrestling with Ass Center, I have not 
managed to ever bring in a "name" from my address book into a 
recordation project in Ass Center.

Has anybody ever successfully brought in a "name" from their MyUSPTO 
address book into a recordation project in Ass Center?

/*Address book does not permit a "name" to be a legal entity. */When I 
am trying to record an assignment (in Ass Center) from (say) company A 
to company B, the two companies are just that.  Companies.  Not human 
beings.  And yet in the MyUSPTO system, as far as I can see it is 
impossible to add an address book entry that is just that -- a company.  
As far as I can see, the MyUSPTO system demands that I provide a first 
name and a last name of some human being at that company.  In my 
(unsuccessful) efforts to use the address book as a source of a name for 
an Ass Center project, I have entered "none" into each of those fields 
in My USPTO.  But if and when I ever do successfully drag and drop a 
"name" into Ass Center, I am worried that the (non-existent) first name 
and last name of the (non-existent) human being inside the company will 
show up in the recordation cover sheet.

Has anybody found a way to create a "company" in their MyUSPTO address 
book that is free from detritus relating to a non-existent human being?

*Ass Center uses weird terminology. *The true sequence of events with 
any assignment recordation system is that at the time of clicking around 
in the recordation system, the assignment already got created /*in the 
past*/, and already got signed /*in the past*/.  The actual situation is 
that the property already changed hands /*in the past*/. The only thing 
being accomplished by clicking around in the recordation system is that 
some event /*that already happened in the past*/ is being memorialized 
now with a precious Reel and Frame Number.  So why is it that Ass Center 
uses buttons labeled "Create Assignment"?  It is simply false for the 
USPTO developers to characterize the activity in Ass Center as 
"creating" an assignment.  Again, to say this as clearly as I can, to 
the extent that any "creating" of an assignment happened, it happened in 
the past, perhaps days or weeks ago.

As a second example of weird terminology, when I paid my government fee 
in Ass Center, what showed up next on the screen was this message:

    Thank you, your payment has been processed. Please sign and submit
    your application by selecting the Continue button.

This is nuts.  I am not submitting an "application".  Nowhere in Ass 
Center is any user "submitting an application".  This terminology ought 
to be corrected in Ass Center.

/*Ass center forces the use of a wrong s-signature. */Years ago I 
adopted an s-signature (virgule signature) for use at the USPTO in 
compliance with 37 CFR § 1.4.  It is a particular character between the 
two slashes (virgules).  Back in the days of ETAS, I was able to enter 
my own s-signature.

But in Ass Center, the system forces me to use a different set of 
characters between the slashes.  It forces me to "sign" using something 
that is not the same as the s-signature that I adopted years ago in 
compliance with 37 CFR § 1.4.  This seems wrong to me.

*/Odd sequence of steps toward the end. /*The USPTO developers picked a 
nonsense sequence of events for the last few steps.  Here is what 
actually happens based on the design decisions that were made by the 
USPTO developers in Ass Center:

 1. construct your recordation cover sheet
 2. upload the document to be recorded
 3. carry out a preview of the document to be recorded
 4. look once again at your recordation cover sheet
 5. click around to say that you are really really sure about your
    recordation cover sheet
 6. but don't sign your recordation cover sheet
 7. click around on the "pay.gov" web site to pay the government fee
 8. hopefully the "pay.gov" web site does not crash as it hopefully
    transfers you back to Ass Center
 9. hopefully Ass Center does not crash at this critical juncture
10. click around to sign your recordation cover sheet
11. the "signing" apparently also counts as "clicking the submit button"

Back in the days of ETAS, step 6 was to sign the recordation cover 
sheet.  Once the money was paid, the filer was done.

But now in Ass Center, apparently the developers have set it up that 
paying the money is not enough, and the reason that paying the money is 
not enough is that the recordation cover sheet remains incomplete (it 
has not been signed).  Once the money is paid, more mouse clicks are 
required to accomplish "signing" of the recordation cover sheet.

But what if pay.gov somehow fails to bring the user back to Ass Center?  
What if pay.gov has some hiccup at that point?

What if Ass Center fails to correctly handle the transfer from pay.gov 
back to Ass Center?  What if Ass Center has some hiccup at that point, 
or crashes at that point?  As far as I can see, the recordation would 
fail.  The user would have lost the money that was paid, and the user 
would never actually ever have any chance of receiving the precious Reel 
and Frame Number.

And while we are enumerating the many single points of failure that 
could happen at this point, it is not only crashes and hiccups at the 
USPTO.  What if the user has the bad luck to have his or her computer 
crash at any point during steps 8 or 9 or 10? What if the user has the 
bad luck to have some disruption of the user's Internet connection at 
any point during steps 8 or 9 or 10?

Again, back in the days of ETAS, there were no single points of failure 
subsequent to handing over the money.  The instant that your credit card 
got charged, you were done and you could relax. But with Ass Center, any 
of half a dozen single points of failure can lead to a situation where 
(a) the filer has paid the money and (b) the filer will never receive 
the precious Reel and Frame Number.


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