Last week, the USPTO's computer systems crashed. Not just on the patent side, but also the trademark side Sometimes you could get in, sometimes you couldn't...eventually I found myself completely unable to access the USPTO's computers - not even the USPTO's homepage, www.uspto.gov - unless I changed something in my browser's setting (the DNS setting, for those of you who are interested; I would never have figured this out on my own but a nice computer-savvy colleague in the USA figure this out.)
During this system crash, I needed to file a response to a notice of missing parts in a national phase application to reduce the number of claims and eliminate multiple dependent claims, so as to avoid paying excess claim fees. I was able to file the response on Tuesday the 16th, which was timely. But by the same deadline I also needed to pay a surcharge for the late submission of the inventor declarations, and because of the PTO's IT issues, I was only able to pay that on Wednesday. (In principle one can fax a credit card payment form to the USPTO, but on Tuesday that was not an option in this case).
This left me wondering, is the USPTO now going to make me pay an extension fee, as penance for the PTO's self-induced computer glitches? I decided to wait and see what happens, and determined that if I didn't get a filing receipt by the one-month extension deadline, I would pay the extension fee.
This week I got my answer: a revised filing receipt, and change in the status of the application to "docketed - ready for examination", as well a notation in the transaction history "application is now complete". No extension fee necessary.
I'm not sure if the processing of my response was due to someone's oversight (i.e. I was expected to pay an extension fee, and someone didn't notice I didn't pay it), or if the PTO is implicitly acknowledging its screw-up. If the latter, it would have been nice if the PTO posted a notice to all of us who had payment problems, informing us that the payment deadline was extended and no extension fee was due.