[Patentcenter] Workbench trouble in PatentCenter: 2 bugs to report

[Jeff Lindsay]

Bug 1: When searching for correspondence, using a custom range going beyond 90 days in the past results in “No data” even when there is recent correspondence. 

Using the Workbench area of PatentCenter today, I wanted to check for recent communications beyond 90 days, so I manually entered a custom range going back 4 months to Jan. 13. The result was no data, even though I have multiple cases with correspondence that show up when I use the dropdown menu selection of 90 days. Those items vanish when I try to look beyond 90 days. If 90 days is the max it can handle, there should be a warning or error message, not the misleading “no data.” A practitioner trusting the PatentCenter could falsely assume there had been no correspondence and miss something. 


When I used the calendar function instead of manually entering the dates, I see that all dates before Feb. 14 are grayed out, indicating that PatentCenter’s search correspondence feature must be limited to only the last 90 days. This seems like an unreasonable limitation. Further, failure to make that limitation clear and to give a warning of some kind when an inaccessible date is entered is very poor programming practice and certainly a bug. Simply returning “No data available” as if the dates had been accepted and searched creates a deceptive and dangerous result that can hide actual data, making this not just terrible programming but a potentially dangerous bug. 

Bug 2: Using the calendar function to work with the limited date range for searching correspondence still results in false “No data” results.

There is a case I filed in February that received two items of correspondence on Feb. 14, 2024, which is still within the 90-day range for searching in the Workbench of PatentCenter, for Feb. 14 is not grayed out. But searching for the past 90 days does not return those items, nor does selecting a custom range of Feb. 14, 2024 to Feb. 18, 2024, a range within the active search region when using the calendar function to select a custom range. 

Here is what I see in the calendar function when selecting that active range:




 

Here is the evidence that I have items of correspondence from Feb. 14, 2024:


Here are the search results when using that custom range:



No data available. This is a bug. 

The items in question again don’t show up when doing a 90-day search either on today, May 13, 2024. 

Jeff Lindsay
jeff at jefflindsay.com
+1 920-257-7347


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