[Patentcenter] Faxes to the PTO - some legacy things do work

Sat Feb 10 05:11:33 EST 2024

 Richard didn't give the URL

https://fedscoop.com/uspto-cio-says-ai-adoption-is-held-back-by-government-culture-and-bureaucracy/

Notably, CIO Holcombe pooh-pooh's "compliance."   That says volumes.

On Fri, Feb 9, 2024 at 11:21 PM Richard Schafer via Patentcenter <
patentcenter at oppedahl-lists.com> wrote:

> I read the FedScoop article and just about fell out of my chair at the
> quote from Jamie Holcombe in the following article:
>
>
>
> USPTO CIO Jamie Holcombe criticizes federal government's approach to
> innovation and long-term modernization, saying “everything we do in the
> government is pretty stupid.”
>
>
>
> For once, I agree with him.
>
>
>
>
>
> Best regards,
> *Richard A. Schafer | Schafer IP Law*
> P.O. Box 230081 | Houston, TX 77223
> M: 832.283.6564 | richard at schafer-ip.com
>
>
>
> *From:* Patentcenter <patentcenter-bounces at oppedahl-lists.com> *On Behalf
> Of *Carl Oppedahl via Patentcenter
> *Sent:* Friday, February 9, 2024 4:29 PM
> *To:* 'For bug reports, feature requests, and tips and tricks about
> Patent Center.' <patentcenter at oppedahl-lists.com>
> *Cc:* Carl Oppedahl <carl at oppedahl.com>
> *Subject:* Re: [Patentcenter] Faxes to the PTO - some legacy things do
> work
>
>
>
> Thank you for finding this and posting about it.
>
> What a terrible terrible shame that the USPTO has apparently been paying
> for landlines for several thousand in-house physical fax solutions.  The
> landlines were surely costing something like $25 a month per line, and
> there were as many landlines as there were telephone numbers in the 571-272
> telephone exchange.   (Each USPTO person who is allocated a voice line like
> 571-272-xxxx has been allocated a corresponding fax line like 571-273-xxxx.)
>
> We are surely looking at something like two or three million dollars per
> year.  All of which comes out of the pockets of our clients, mind you.
>
> It takes only a few mouse clicks to find that a modern fax solution can
> save a lot of money compared to the kind of legacy solution employed by the
> USPTO.  Our firm's central fax number costs us $1.99 per month (see
> https://voip.ms/business/pricing ).  I will note that $1.99 is a lot less
> than $25, for those who are keeping score at home.  It gives us our faxes
> as PDF files, which is surely what the USPTO would want for its internal
> workflows.  The total bill is $1.99 per month, plus about 3¢ per minute for
> the inbound faxes.
>
> If the USPTO ends up selecting any other provider that charges more than
> about $2 per month, they are getting ripped off.
>
>
>
>
>
> On 2/9/2024 2:10 PM, Sandra L Etherton wrote:
>
> Now that the fax option to submit documents has been hard down for days, I
> started researching how this could happen.
>
>
>
> Per FedScoop, the Patent Office sent out an RFI in September 2023 to
> switch from RightFax to a cloud solution for faxes. Did the Patent Office
> already switch? Is that what’s causing the current fax outage?
>
>
>
> The irony or prophecy is in the second line of the article, link below:
>
> “While the current USPTO fax system, RightFax, has only had one outage in
> 18 years, the system remains at risk for a larger disruption that could get
> in the way of the office’s handling of public customer document submissions”
>
>
>
>
> https://fedscoop.com/patent-and-trademark-office-looks-to-bring-faxing-to-the-cloud/
>
>
>
> Links to the RFI are at the bottom of this page:
>
> https://sam.gov/opp/0e651e45f4e1474cbd1ac0fb0914856a/view
>
>
>
> Sandra
>
>
>
> *______________________*
>
>
>
> *Sandra L Etherton*
>
> Registered U.S. Patent Attorney
>
>
>
> *ETHERTON LAW GROUP, LLC*
>
> tel: (602) 681-3331 | fax:  (602) 681-3339
>
> email: sandra at ethertonlaw.com
>
>
>
> www.ethertonlaw.com
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* Patentcenter [mailto:patentcenter-bounces at oppedahl-lists.com
> <patentcenter-bounces at oppedahl-lists.com>] *On Behalf Of *Carl Oppedahl
> via Patentcenter
> *Sent:* Thursday, January 18, 2024 10:01 AM
> *To:* For bug reports, feature requests, and tips and tricks about Patent
> Center. <patentcenter at oppedahl-lists.com>
> <patentcenter at oppedahl-lists.com>
> *Cc:* Carl Oppedahl <carl at oppedahl.com> <carl at oppedahl.com>
> *Subject:* Re: [Patentcenter] Faxes to the PTO - some legacy things do
> work
>
>
>
> Yeah, I imagine most practitioners do always file the declaration with the
> application.  I imagine I am quite out of the ordinary, having to hand in
> inventors' declarations later.
>
> What happens to me is, I keep fiddling with the text of the patent
> application, particularly the claims, with multiple version changes leading
> up to the moment, late in the day on the last possible day, that I click
> "submit" and e-file it at the patent office.
>
> The inventor declaration of course is tied to the notion that the signer
> has reviewed the patent application that is going to be filed, and agrees
> that he or she is an inventor thereof.  But in my case, given that the
> exact wording of the application kept wriggling around until the very end,
> there is no way the inventor could be expected to sign such a thing until
> after the wriggling had ceased.  Which means, no way could the inventor
> even sign the declaration until chronologically after the filing of the
> application had taken place.
>
> Yet another thing that happens to me is, the instructions come in from
> foreign instructing counsel to please get something filed at the USPTO.  So
> I prepare inventor declarations and send them to instructing counsel.  The
> signed declarations do not arrive until some days later, long after the US
> patent application got filed.  Which means, no way could I managed to file
> the declaration with the application.
>
> On 1/18/2024 8:49 AM, Randall Svihla via Patentcenter wrote:
>
> We always file the declaration with the application.
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* Patentcenter <patentcenter-bounces at oppedahl-lists.com>
> <patentcenter-bounces at oppedahl-lists.com> *On Behalf Of *Roger Browdy via
> Patentcenter
> *Sent:* Thursday, January 18, 2024 10:34 AM
> *To:* For bug reports, feature requests, and tips and tricks about Patent
> Center. <patentcenter at oppedahl-lists.com>
> <patentcenter at oppedahl-lists.com>
> *Cc:* Roger Browdy <RLBrowdy at browdyneimark.com>
> <RLBrowdy at browdyneimark.com>
> *Subject:* Re: [Patentcenter] Faxes to the PTO - some legacy things do
> work
>
>
>
> I don’t think it is a joke.  I bet there was a huge volume of applications
> filed Tuesday night to avoid the DOCX tax.  We had to file one late at
> night and had a hell of a time trying to do so.  Couldn’t file the
> assignment/dec forms with EPAS because of the problems and couldn’t get
> back into PC to file the declaration directly, so have to pay the surcharge
> for late filing of declaration because of the PTO problems.  In a fair
> world, we would be able to get that refunded.
>
>
>
> Roger
>
>
>
> *From:* Patentcenter <patentcenter-bounces at oppedahl-lists.com>
> <patentcenter-bounces at oppedahl-lists.com> *On Behalf Of *Patent Lawyer
> via Patentcenter
> *Sent:* Thursday, January 18, 2024 10:25 AM
> *To:* For bug reports, feature requests, and tips and tricks about Patent
> Center. <patentcenter at oppedahl-lists.com>
> <patentcenter at oppedahl-lists.com>
> *Cc:* Patent Lawyer <patentlawyer995 at gmail.com>
> <patentlawyer995 at gmail.com>
> *Subject:* [Patentcenter] Faxes to the PTO - some legacy things do work
>
>
>
> There was recent discussion about faxes to the PTO and return faxes from
> the PTO.
>
>
>
> Because of yesterday’s shit show with Patent Center and because of other
> deficiencies in Patent Center, I had to fax four separate submissions to
> the PTO last night.
>
>
>
> I did receive acknowledgment faxes back from the PTO for each
> submission.   So, that legacy functionality is still there, and it still
> worked for me.  (I hope the PTO lurkers on this list don’t go and turn it
> off!)
>
>
>
> I use a service called eFax.  It is not free.
>
>
>
>
>
> PS. I am still laughing at Sandra E’s joke about DDOS being just normal
> filers filing in a volume the system can’t handle.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> Patentcenter mailing list
> Patentcenter at oppedahl-lists.com
> http://oppedahl-lists.com/mailman/listinfo/patentcenter_oppedahl-lists.com
>

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