[Patentpractice] POA and correspondence/maintenance fee address change after issuance

[Carl Oppedahl]

Well, what he said.

I cannot count how many times I had some front-line person at the USPTO 
get the wrong answer on something, and I had no choice but to escalate 
to some higher level within the USPTO to get somebody to order the 
front-line person to correct their mistake.

It is so sad that what makes sense is to spend the time and energy to 
construct an extra piece of paper and put it into the record, merely to 
build a record so that the front-line person who got the wrong answer 
will eventually be ordered to correct their mistake, and maybe the extra 
piece of paper will reduce how long it takes to get a higher-level 
person to realize the front-line person was wrong.

So yes, what he said.

On 9/28/2025 1:25 AM, Dan Feigelson via Patentpractice wrote:
> Late to this discussion, but in addition to filing all those 
> documents, in my cover letter I would quote the relevant reg(s) and 
> explain which of the attached documents fulfills which requirement of 
> which reg.  At least that way, if you have to go higher up within the 
> PTO or to court, the next person up the chain can see how the dolt 
> who's refusing the POA is flouting the regs.
>
> Dan
>
> On Fri, Sep 26, 2025 at 11:11 PM Peter Medley via Patentpractice 
> <patentpractice at oppedahl-lists.com> wrote:
>
>     I agree with Timothy (and others). I would re-file the documents,
>     although I’m not sure about either the Copy of the Assignment
>     Notice of Recordation because the 3.73(c) statement includes the
>     reel and frame number (at least the USPTO form does) or the Change
>     of Correspondence Address because the change of address is
>     included on the power of attorney (at least the USPTO forms does).
>     We have successfully had a new power of attorney accepted for many
>     patents without submitting either of these two documents.
>
>     Occasionally, we’ll have to do this for a patent portfolio. Our
>     success rate is around 60%–70%. We have learned over the years to
>     just re-file the documents if they aren’t accepted the first time.
>     Rarely, we’ll have to re-file a second time. To be clear, if we
>     file the same forms in 10 patents at the same time, then we expect
>     that the USPTO will accept the new power of attorney in about 6 or
>     7 of the patents and will reject the same forms in 3 or 4 of the
>     other patents.
>
>
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