USPTO e-Office Action Notification Failure for April 24-25

EDITORIAL NOTE: As of April 26, 2013 at 12:56am ET, the USPTO has resolved this issue. Notices not automatically sent will be resent.

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Due to a system issue, the e-Office Action process is currently experiencing a problem with sending emails to external email addresses. Automatic Email notifications have been delayed for e-Office Action participants on 4/24 and 4/25 – emails are currently being sent manually. We are working to resolve this problem and anticipate the e-Office Action program will be working again shortly. In the meantime, please go to the Outgoing Correspondence tab in Private PAIR to check if you have new correspondence from the Office. We will keep you informed with follow-up announcements. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Here are the step-by-step instructions to access your new correspondence:

Log into Private PAIR
Under the Search for Customer Number section, select the View Outgoing Correspondence radio button, select “7 days” from the “for the past” drop-down list
Leave the selection for Select Customer Number drop-down list at the default option, “All”
A list of new Office correspondence will be available for the last 7 days, including today’s

U.S.P.T.O.

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2 comments so far.

EG
April 25, 2013 02:50 pm
Mark,

This isn’t the worst “snafu” to happen with correspondence from the USPTO. Many years ago, before the days of PAIR and EFS Web, there were a whole bunch of USPTO correspondence (mainly Office Actions) that went through a particular Chicago branch office of the USPS and simply “disappeared.” As a result, there was a “domino effect” as a whole raft of patent applications were held to be “abandoned” for failure to respond to all those “missing” Office Actions. Of course, no “sin” was ever admitted by the federal government (and especially couldn’t be admitted by the USPTO who didn’t cause those Office Actions to go “missing”), but as I recall, a special rule was instituted to “revive” all of those patent applications that were held to be “abandonde” do to failure of the applicant or their representative receiving those “missing” Office Actions.
Mark Nowotarski
April 25, 2013 02:01 pm
Sigh