[Patentpractice] Now fixed (was Assignment Center is broken for IPv6)

[Carl Oppedahl]

The USPTO quietly fixed its mistake about IPv6, reported below. See blog 
article entitled /Assignment Center was broken for customers using IPv6, 
now fixed/, at 
https://blog.oppedahl.com/assignment-center-was-broken-for-customers-using-ipv6-now-fixed/.

On 5/7/2024 9:39 AM, Carl Oppedahl via Patentpractice wrote:
>
> Thank you everybody for reporting on this.
>
> I tried it again on Chrome just now and same error message. Tried it 
> with https and with http.  In Chrome, I cleared all USPTO-related 
> cookies.  Tried it again with https and with http.  Still no joy.
>
> Tried it in Edge.  Nope, no joy.
>
> Tried it in Firefox.   Nope, no joy.
>
> The various browsers puke on assignmentcenter.uspto.gov with an error 
> message that sounds like a TLS version fail or an SSL cert 
> chain-of-trust fail.
>
> Just now I used the Qualys SSLabs tester to test the access to 
> assignmentcenter.uspto.gov.  I note with great interest that the 
> Qualys tester carries out its testing in two paths -- Assignment 
> Center resolves not only to an IPv4 address (151.207.245.82) but also 
> to an IPv6 address (2610:20:5011:1604:0:0:0:82).  It crosses my mind 
> that the non-identical results among users might be because some are 
> using IPv6 and others are using IPv4 to reach Assignment Center.
>
> The Qualys tests finished just now.  For both paths (the IPv4 and the 
> IPv6) Qualys gives a grade of "B" for the quality of USPTO's TLS and 
> SSL for this domain.  For both paths, the USPTO's HTTPS stack fails to 
> provide forward secrecy.  For both paths, the USPTO's HTTPS stack 
> offers to negotiate to some very old and weak TLS cipher suites.  And 
> HTTP simply fails, for the IPv6 stack.  (The IPv6 stack is not set up 
> with HSTS.)
>
> (For those keeping score at home, blog.oppedahl.com gets a grade of 
> "A" for the TLS and SSL quality.)
>
> Aha!  The defect in USPTO's systems is now clearer.  I turned off IPv6 
> on the network interface of my notebook computer, and now I have no 
> difficulty making use of Assignment Center.
>
> The USPTO people don't know how to configure IPv6 correctly for 
> Assignment Center.
>
> Time for a blog article I guess.
>
> For those who had difficulty getting Assignment Center to work, the 
> question I have for you is, do you have your computer set up to do 
> IPv6 as well as IPv4?
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On 5/7/2024 8:51 AM, Bruce Young via Patentpractice wrote:
>
>> I was just able to record an assignment. I am using Chrome on Windows 10.
>>
>> -Bruce Young
>>
>> (712) 541-9822
>>
>> *From:*Patentpractice <patentpractice-bounces at oppedahl-lists.com> *On 
>> Behalf Of *Carl Oppedahl via Patentpractice
>> *Sent:* Tuesday, May 7, 2024 9:17 AM
>> *To:* patentpractice at oppedahl-lists.com
>> *Cc:* Carl Oppedahl <carl at oppedahl.com>
>> *Subject:* [Patentpractice] Is Assignment Center still broken?
>>
>> As far as I can see, Assignment Center is still broken. Are others 
>> able to make use of Assignment Center just now?
>>
>> On 5/7/2024 2:38 AM, Carl Oppedahl via Patentpractice wrote:
>>
>>     Assignment Center is broken.  The system status page
>>     https://www.uspto.gov/blog/ebiz/ lists a few systems that have
>>     scheduled outages right now (midnight- 5:30 a.m. on Tuesday, May
>>     7 ET) but Assignment center is not one of the listed systems.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://oppedahl-lists.com/pipermail/patentpractice_oppedahl-lists.com/attachments/20240513/7a94efad/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image001.png
Type: image/png
Size: 23063 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://oppedahl-lists.com/pipermail/patentpractice_oppedahl-lists.com/attachments/20240513/7a94efad/attachment.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: smime.p7s
Type: application/pkcs7-signature
Size: 4514 bytes
Desc: S/MIME Cryptographic Signature
URL: <http://oppedahl-lists.com/pipermail/patentpractice_oppedahl-lists.com/attachments/20240513/7a94efad/attachment.p7s>