Posts Tagged: "TEAS"

New rules governing all trademark filings with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) went into effect two days ago, on February 15. Although the headline is a move to mandatory electronic filing for virtually all trademark applications, some of the rules have caused significant controversy within the trademark bar, especially a requirement that applicants provide a contact email address for the applicant, not just their counsel. The USPTO’s shift to mandatory electronic filing is relatively uncontroversial, since more than 99% of applications under Section 1 or Section 44 of the Trademark Act are already filed electronically. There are certain exceptions under the rule for foreign applicants under international agreements, and for non-traditional scent and flavor marks, where a physical specimen will still need to be mailed to the USPTO. But for all other applicants, electronic filing will now be mandatory unless the USPTO’s filing system – the Trademark Electronic Application System (TEAS) – goes down.

This week in Other Barks & Bites: US Inventor will host an inventor rally during AIPLA’s Annual Meeting to protest the PTAB; the Federal Circuit vacates dismissal of infringement case against Sirius XM; the USPTO updates subject matter patent eligibility guidelines, changes TEAS access, and seeks participants for a beta release of the Patent Center; WIPO reports that China received half of all patent application filings in 2018 while the United States saw its first patent filing decline in a decade; Google files a supplemental brief at the Supreme Court in its case against Oracle; Katy Perry files a motion to overturn the “Dark Horse” copyright verdict against her; the FCC approves the merger between mobile wireless firms T-Mobile and Sprint; and U.S. Customs proposes rulemaking to improve its detention of copyright-violating goods imported at the U.S. border.

In retrospect, the proper thing for Director Lee to have done would have been to declare an emergency under the powers vested in her by 35 USC 21(a). Under §21(a) the Director of the USPTO can declare that a paper was filed on a day that it would have been filed but for a disruption in mail service or emergency. The net effect is that the filing is treated the same as under the Saturday, Sunday or Federal holiday rule. It would be wise for the Patent Office to issue a clarification on this matter, explaining that Director Lee declared an emergency under §21(a) of Title 35 and did not attempt to create a new federal holiday in honor of a catastrophic power outage.

On December 22, 2015, at approximately 7:00 pm, the USPTO experienced a catastrophic failure of electronic information systems due to what is being called a major power outage at the Office’s headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia. Could a power outage be responsible for electronic filing systems and information systems being down for nearly a week? Yes, it is certainly possible, but if you read between the lines it seems to me that the USPTO does not definitively know what happened or why. Given the importance of the USPTO electronic systems why didn’t the USPTO have real, robust, and redundant contingency plans? Why did they choose not to answer questions? The one question I specifically posed was whether the Office could confirm that no information or files were lost. I have not yet received an answer to that question.

The Trademark Electronic Application System (TEAS) will be unable to process payments on Friday, December 4, 2015, from 12:01 a.m. until 4:00 a.m. ET and on Saturday, December 5, 2015, from 6 a.m. until 11:59 a.m. ET. Other trademark systems will also be temporarily unavailable throughout the weekend for maintenance as well.