Over the years, in this blog I have written more than a few complaints about the Israel PTO. But one of the good sides of the ILPTO that I have consistently emphasized is that, being relatively small, it’s usually possible to get problems at the ILPTO fixed.
Hence yesterday, I blogged about the ILPTO’s web site being inaccessible, at least to some users. Enough people reported problems that the ILPTO acknowledged there was an issue and looked into it.
During the course of the day, the ILPTO sent out an email containing a list of direct hyperlinks to each of the four different online filing systems – patents, TMs, designs and PCT. This fixed the problem for most people, but not for your truly. It also didn’t address the fact that the ILPTO’s home page was down – as were, apparently, other pages on the Justice Ministry’s servers. I let the ILPTO know this.
I was therefore pleasantly surprised when around 5 PM, I got a call from the IT person at the ILPTO, who asked me to describe what problems I had. After that, until I went to sleep much later, I had several email exchanges not only with him but with a whole team of IT people who apparently are responsible for part of the Israel government’s online services. I would try to access sites, and send my screen shots of the responses I got.
By the time I went to sleep, they had fixed the access to the patent filing system, but when I checked this morning the main ILPTO page was still inaccessible. Then I checked a short time ago, and voila! There it was.
So thanks to Dror, Elad, and the rest of the crew who worked late into the night on Friday (like working Saturday in the USA) to fix this.
Were it that things were so simple at the counterpart patent office in the USA. This week, the USPTO announced it that it’s making Patent Center available to all for beta-testing. Patent Center is meant to replace the current PAIR and EFS systems. Sort of like WIPO’s ePCT. Which makes you wonder why they didn’t just adopt ePCT.
The announcement stressed all the great ways in which Patent Center will facilitate the filing of documents in docx format. But a bunch of us signed a letter to the PTO last year in which we explained why the PTO insisting on filing in docx format is asinine. (OK, David Boundy, who wrote the letter, did not use the word “asinine” anywhere in letter – our communications with the USPTO must follow rules of decorum – but in thee words, “this is asinine” is what we told the PTO.) Clearly, the PTO intends to move forward with this docx filing thing irrespective of its being ready for roll. Or even a good idea.
Then there are reports of bugs in the system itself. Carl Oppedahl has reported about some of these on his blog: about how the system messes up reel and frame numbers for assignments, how it doesn’t allow users to claim priority from applications filed at the EPO, and how it provides fillable forms that are then mangled by the PTO’s own systems upon submission.
I guess that’s what beta-testing is for, to work out the kinks. But that assumes someone is listening. And there’s nothing in the USPTO’s behavior to indicate that anyone is listening. The USPTO’s announcement said that comments should be made through something called IdeaScale. The PTO has collected comments via IdeaScale before. And neither I nor anyone I know who has made comments via IdeaScale has ever heard anything back from the PTO. Moreover, Carl was an alpha tester for Patent Center, and some of the problems now being experienced by others are problems he mentioned to the USPTO more than a year ago.
The USPTO’s failure to listen to the input it’s given by the people who use its systems most reminds me of Miracle Max (Billy Crystal) running around the table with his fingers in his ears yelling, “I’m not listening!” as he’s being chased by his wife (Carol Kane) yelling “Humperdinck! Humperdinck!” Except that scene was funny, and this one isn’t, and we practitioners aren’t trying to annoy the USPTO, we want it to serve the public better.
I still have criticisms of the ILPTO. But I also appreciate the fact the ILPTO is still small enough that you can usually find someone to fix problems.
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