[Patentpractice] astonishing slowness from "helpaia"

[Timothy Snowden]

Same here. I always regret when I forget

On 10/9/2025 1:17 PM, David Boundy via Patentpractice wrote:
> 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" <mailto: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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