[Patentpractice] astonishing slowness from "helpaia"

[David Boundy]

Ditto.   Once I got a Notice of Abandonment six months after I replied to a
Missing Parts on the same day.   Look at the IFW.  As sorted,
applicant-filed stuff sorts BELOW (older than) examiner-filed stuff on the
same day.  So, like Patent Lawyer, no matter how trivial the change or how
irritated I am at a STOOOPID request, I always wait a day.

On Thu, Oct 9, 2025 at 1:36 PM Patent Lawyer via Patentpractice <
patentpractice at oppedahl-lists.com> wrote:

> Carl,
>
>
>
> Your story reminded me of one of my practice tips (to myself).
>
>
>
> You said *you filed a response the same day you received the notice*
> (Form M327).
>
>
>
> In my experience, it is those same-day responses that get lost at the
> PTO.  They don’t seem to be able to match an incoming applicant paper as a
> response to an outgoing PTO paper of the same date.  It does not matter
> what I titled the paper (I think there’s a required title).  This problem
> predates Patent Center.
>
>
>
> I have had this problem with missing parts notices (especially if they
> want more than fees), and these after-issue-fee or after-allowance drawing
> problems.  Even if they take the fees (which they always do), the do not
> match the papers.
>
>
>
> So, as pissed off as I get from these after-issue-fee drawing notices
> (especially in US national phase applications), and as easy and therapeutic
> as it might be to respond, if I remember, I wait at least one day before
> filing a response.
>
>
>
>
>
> *From: *Patentpractice <patentpractice-bounces at oppedahl-lists.com> on
> behalf of Patentpractice Patentpractice <patentpractice at oppedahl-lists.com
> >
> *Reply-To: *Patentpractice Patentpractice <
> patentpractice at oppedahl-lists.com>
> *Date: *Thursday, October 9, 2025 at 12:02 PM
> *To: *Patentpractice Patentpractice <patentpractice at oppedahl-lists.com>
> *Cc: *Carl Oppedahl <carl at oppedahl.com>
> *Subject: *[Patentpractice] astonishing slowness from "helpaia"
>
>
>
> Wow.  You can send an email to helpaia at uspto.gov and if you do, it won't
> get ignored.  It will actually get answered.  But it will take five months
> to get the answer.  Here is how it went.
>
> We paid the Issue Fee in one of our cases on March 3, 2025, and as so
> often happens these days, it was *after I paid the Issue Fee* that
> somebody in the Issue Branch got all wound up about how supposedly our
> drawings were defective.  A Form M327 arrived on March 7, 2025, telling me
> that two of my figures were defective.
>
> Never mind that the Application Branch people whose job it is to pipe up
> if something is wrong with the drawings did not find anything wrong with
> the drawings back when they were deciding whether or not to mail out a
> Filing Receipt (back in August of 2022).
>
> Never mind that the USPTO people who do 18-month publication did not find
> anything defective about the drawings and were able to carry out the
> 18-month pub.
>
> Never mind that when the Examiner examined the case, the Examiner was able
> to figure out whether or not the case was patentable without the quality of
> the drawings getting in the way.
>
> But anyway yes once we had paid the Issue Fee, somebody in the Issue
> Branch found a real or imagined defect in two or our figures.  And I filed
> a detailed response (later the same day, on March 7, 2025) explaining why
> there was nothing wrong with those figures.  (I suspected it was a problem
> arising out of the fact that the USPTO system mangles drawings when placing
> them into IFW, because the drawings were perfectly clear in SCORE but were
> mangled in IFW.)  And many weeks passed with no word back from anybody at
> the USPTO as to whether our case was going to go abandoned (as threatened)
> due to the supposedly defective drawings.
>
> This was back in the days when you could pick up the phone and dial the
> AAU and it would only take an hour or two to reach a human being.
>
> Anyway whatever the problem was, I had phoned up the AAU twice (the second
> time on April 7, 2025) and the AAU persons had not meaningfully assisted.
> And so on April 30, 2025 I sent the email.
>
> (As an aside, I cannot now recall how I stumbled upon helpaia at uspto.gov
> as a place to go to try to get help.)
>
> Anyway, I guess whoever the nameless person was in the Issue Branch who
> had gotten wound up about this, that person maybe eventually paid attention
> to my detailed response and decided to release the hold on the to-be-issued
> case, because the patent did eventually issue on June 18, 2025.
>
> Anyway, here is the astonishing thing.   Today, October 9, 2025 I received
> a response to the "helpaia" email.  It came from "helpaau at uspto.gov"
> <helpaau at uspto.gov> which is not the same email address, but it quoted my
> April 30 email so it is clear it was in response to my email that I sent to
> "helpaia".
>
> There are several learning opportunities floating around in this odd
> sequence of events.
>
> First, apparently helpaia at uspto.gov is a real thing and does really reach
> human beings somehow.  I suppose every practitioner should add this to
> their bag of tricks in case it might some day be helpful.
>
> Second, we note that it took more than five months for this email to
> elicit a response.
>
> Have you used helpaia?  Did it work for you?
>
>
> --
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>
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>
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