eCommerce Modernization Browse Recent ideas

Right now, all NPL (and foreign) references are tagged only with "foreign reference" or "non-patent reference." This can be a pain when you have 20 NPLs and you need to download the one new one the Examiner is relying on. Ideally I would love a description (e.g. the author's name for any NPL, and the patent number for any foreign reference.) But if we can't have that, I'd like the items cited (or even better relied ...more »

When applications are filed and published pre-grant, they have paragraph numbers, and those paragraph numbers are also used during prosecution to make any amendments to the specification When the patent issues, those paragraph numbers disappear and are replaced with column/line numbers. Wouldn't it be easier for the PTO and the reviewing public to have a consistent specification appearance by simply staying with the ...more »

Right now, you can get your Deposit Account on a monthly basis by downloading the monthly statements.

There is no way to search transactions, or even download transactions over a longer period than one month. It would be very useful to be able to download all transactions for a longer time period than one month.

Currently the Petition for Foreign Filing License must be submitted via FAX. The petition and accompanying documents must be faxed to the appropriate office and, according to the people who process the petitions, the documents are not received in their mailbox until the following day. Follow up to make sure the fax was properly received is thereby delayed. The usual turn around time to receive the License is 2-3 business ...more »

This idea is similar to one I posted earlier, but comes up in a different context. See: https://uspto-emod.ideascale.com/a/dtd/537995-31593, for the original idea relating to correcting EFS-Web filings after pressing the Submit button). Sometimes, either due to an error on behalf of the filer or due to the USPTO Financial Manager not working properly, submissions are made without payment of fees that are due. Sometimes ...more »

Sometimes, and frequently enough to warrant this comment, the Financial Manager payment system does not work at the exact moment you are submitting an issue fee payment. Unfortunately, the system often goes down temporarily and without notice (so the user has no idea that the system is not working) or there is some glitch with the browser being used such that the end result is that the payment system does not work. ...more »

This really is about the new Global Dossier (and PAIR Modernization seemed the closest category to comment in). Specifically, in the new Citation List Beta release, the field to accept application serial numbers is limited to 8 characters, so if you cut and past an application serial number in the format: XX/123,456 the end result will be XX/123,4 with the last two digits truncated (similarly, XX/123456 will be truncated ...more »

I think when you get the automatic approval of an e-Terminal Disclaimer in EFS, that the approval receipt document should include the patent/application number(s) that were listed in the disclaimer. I think it would also be very helpful if the notice on the front of the patent indicating that the patent is subject to a disclaimer also listed the patents/application number(s) disclaimed.

The PTO requires designation of what type of fees are being paid. When none of the listed options fit, there should be an "other" option which would be followed by a space where the Payor would identify the purpose of the fee. This would also permit payment in a small entity amount of fees in an application that is currently non-small entity (or vice-versa) and the payment is accompanied by a change of status request ...more »

Please include all pertinent applicant/application information on the first page of the official Filing Receipt, such as the title of the application and the entity status. Often this information is on second page, which I find a nuisance.

The requirement that s-signatures be placed within slashes (e.g., /John Doe/) is an anachronism that is difficult and time-consuming to explain to inventors and executives, and even harder to achieve in practice. Modern signing services (e.g., such as DocuSign, et al.) provide proof of an intent to sign that can be retained in the practitioner's file. For the 21st century we need to permit signing the way the rest of ...more »

When we do a final review of documents uploaded, we sometimes discover errors. In order to fix those errors, we have to first delete the file (losing the document description, or document descriptions and page numbers for multi-part files), and then upload a new file, and adding the document description again.

It would be really useful to be able to replace the PDF file, while keeping all the other data in place.