[Patentpractice] (i) USPTO fax not working and (ii) question about faxing a 'wrong' fee-code + credit card details

[Carl Oppedahl]

This is extremely well-plowed ground.  It looks like you have not had an 
opportunity review my many blog postings on this subject, including 
https://blog.oppedahl.com/sluggishness-of-uspto-workflow-for-inbound-faxes/ 
.

It is well established by now that the people at the USPTO whose job 
includes:

  * looking at received faxes, and
  * looking at received paper mail, and
  * looking at stuff that has been hand-carried to the USPTO

are failing to do their jobs diligently.

We have for example a host of Powers of Attorney that the USPTO received 
from us by mail on October 2, 2024 and they did not show up in IFW until 
just a couple of weeks ago.

We have for example a host of Powers of Attorney that the USPTO received 
from us at the Central Fax Number on September 27, 2024 and they did not 
show up in IFW until just a couple of weeks ago.



On 1/15/2025 1:35 PM, William Ahmed via Patentpractice wrote:
> Dear All,
> About 5 weeks ago, we faxed an office action response to
> 1-571-273-8300
>
> 5 weeks later, the USPTO has still not posted this response to the 
> file-wrapper [we ended up subsequently e-filing the same OA response 
> to avoid extension fees].
>
> OUR PROBLEM -- we recently filed multiple reissue applications. Patent 
> center did NOT properly read the ADS due to IT issues [they picked up 
> a lot of ADS data but not all of it].
> Therefore, Patent center did NOT allow us to pay the reissue 
> filing/search/examination fees, which have different fee-codes for a 
> 'basic utility non-provisional'.
> We do not have a deposit account. The ADS is OK, so I assume a human 
> will process the ADS in the upcoming weeks/months and will enter this 
> into the system as a reissue application.
>
> We need to pay fees BEFORE the January 19 fee-increase.
>
> FIRST QUESTION -- is there a better fax number than 1-571-273-8300 [we 
> pay maintenance fees to their fax and this is always handled correctly]
>
> SECOND QUESTION -- what happens if fax staff receives our credit-card 
> fee payment, and processes it next week BEFORE the USPTO mails the 
> official filing receipt.
> As of today, the USPTO thinks this is a 'basic utility filing' rather 
> than a reissue filing.
>
> Will the USPTO credit card staff they take the money from my cc and 
> post those fee reissue codes to the file, assuming the 'regular USPTO 
> staff' will work things out?
>
> Or will they refuse to take the money, causing me to be stuck with 
> higher filing fees since I will only be able to pay after January 19, 
> 2025.
> Even though the reissue fees are increasing 'only' by 8% on January 
> 19, over multiple reissue applications, this is significant.
>
> Please advise.
>
> Many thanks,
> Bill
>
>
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