Posts Tagged: "eFiling"

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.

Due to maintenance required on USPTO systems, access to Public PAIR, Private PAIR, EFS-Web and EFS-Web Contingency will be unavailable beginning 12:01 a.m. and ending at 11:59 p.m. Saturday, December 5th ET.

The USPTO is in the process of redesigning its IT systems to take advantage of new technology that will allow end-to-end electronic processing of trademark matters. The new system, known as Trademark Next Generation (TMNG), will significantly increase the functionality and flexibility of the USPTO’s systems, including those used by TTAB, but the TTAB-related aspects of TMNG, particularly for trial cases, will deploy later than those related to examination and appeals. In the interim, TTAB is considering potential updates to ESTTA that are critical from our perspective and from that of our stakeholders. The goal of the forum is to gain stakeholder input as to capabilities considered to be critical, both for the purpose of enhancing ESTTA functionality in the near term and to assist us in planning for the aspects of TMNG that will impact TTAB.