Posts Tagged: "TEASi"

The USPTO Director can legally extend filing deadlines for emergencies

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.

Gene Quinn

December 29, 2015

USPTO experiences catastrophic failure of electronic patent and trademark systems

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.

Gene Quinn

December 28, 2015

Trademark System Maintenance Scheduled for December 4 – 6

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.

U.S.P.T.O.

December 3, 2015