[Patentcenter] patentcenter fails on attempt to download electronic acknowledgment receipt after pay issue fee

[Gerry Peters]

Attempts to download electronic acknowledgment receipt (and electronic
payment receipt; hereinafter collectively "ack") following payment of
issue fee has now twice (once on 2024 01 24 and once on 2024 01 28)
resulted in failure: swirly spinning cursor spins in place for maybe 10
seconds, following which browser returns to patentcenter workbench
without downloading ack. 

Fact that patentcenter spontaneously jumps to workbench when ack
download attempt fails, preventing user from even taking screenshot of
ack web page, is particularly nasty failure mode, especially when one
considers that this is the user's only chance to document what was
filed/paid and user is thereafter at mercy of downstream process by
which submission, payment, ack, etc. eventually show up in IFW. Bizarre
that patentcenter only does the spontaneous jump to workbench, blanking
the ack web page in the process, when the ack download attempt _fails_
(i.e., when you most need the ack web page not to disappear), as there
is no spontaneous jump to workbench and concomitant blanking of the ack
web page when the ack download attempt is successful (normal
post-ack-download behavior is for the ack web page to continue to be
displayed until the user proactively clicks on another menu item).

Obviously not acceptable behavior, as user will have no proof of what
was filed when user is trying to make a hard deadline and there is no
guarantee that the IFW will promptly (or in fact, ever) reflect what
was filed; i.e., the _purpose_ of the ack is to protect the user when
something goes wrong with downstream processing, so is
mission-critical that patentcenter not blank the ack web page until
the user is satisfied that he or she has archived a copy of the ack.

This is on Firefox. Note that I only observed the above behavior with
download of ack following issue fee payment. Have so far had no problem
downloading ack following other types of filing (e.g., IDS). Also, my
recollection is that, from web page showing ack content that appears
following successful submission/payment, clicking on "Print" rather
than "Save" is more reliable, as it opens a popup window that itself
has a down-arrow download button, and that the down-arrow download
button in the "Print" popup window has worked for me at times when
clicking on "Save" from the initial ack web page hasn't (i.e.,
following issue fee payments).

But note that "Print" option will be unavailable if you first click on
"Save" because of patentcenter jump back to workbench, so to reliably
save ack following issue fee payment, I would recommend that the
cautious user first click "Print" and download ack from print popup
window as "insurance" in case the "Save" button results in failure.

Would be interested if others have noticed this same issue (unable to
download ack by clicking on "Save" following issue fee payment).

---Gerry

Gerry Peters
U.S. Patent Agent & Japanese Translator

JTT K.K. (OSAKA & TOKYO JAPAN)
JTT PATENT SERVICES, LLC (NH USA)
JTT TRANSLATION SERVICES, LLC (NH USA)
--------------------------------------------------
TEL +1 206 203 5010	EMAIL	info at jttpatent.com
FAX +1 206 203 5020	WEB  	www.jttpatent.com