eCommerce Modernization Patent Center Beta Release

I've attended patent center webinars for most of 2020. I believe it would be helpful to provide USPTO customers a redlined version of patent center presentation, which includes any changes made since the previous webinar? This would help quickly identify improvements, updates and modifications.

We are finding more and more that there is a glitch that results in logins being ineffective, i.e., the login is not rejected, but Patent Center acts like it didn't happen. Specifically, the user is not shown the Workbench or any other non-public interfaces--even after they log in. It seems like it usually happens after a successful login and later logout--the non-public interfaces are shown for the initial log in, and... more »

When in the View Correspondence area of the Workbench, you can click the ellipsis to get a Customize Columns pop-up. One of the columns you can add is "Viewed By," which we like to view in order to track what needs to be reviewed daily. However, after clicking on an application number and returning to View Correspondence, it does not save the setting - you have to click on the ellipsis again and check off the appropriate... more »

When downloading correspondence from Private PAIR the combined PDF file contains bookmarks in the format

"customerno applicationnumber date typeofdocument."

 

The equivalent bookmarks in PatentCenter only include date and type of document. That is unfortunate. The PAIR format allows us to parse a larger PDF file and separate it out into different files following our firm's naming convention. Adding the application... more »

There are two features available in Private Pair, which are no longer available in Patent Center.

The first one is in the search options, where it's no longer possible to search by docket number. This was useful, for example, when the system did not immediately find via application number.

The second feature was when selecting to download a PDF. In Private Pair it is possible to open the document without first saving.... more »

Hi,

I see that there are some changes to Patent Center from the earlier beta version. In the earlier version, there was an option to search applications through customer number, which is not available currently. Even, the customer number field is no longer available at the application data page. I have following recommendations for your consideration:

1. The 'Search by customer number' option should be made available... more »

I sign into my USPTO.gov account, then click the Patent Drop Down and click on Patent Center. Once there, I do not have "Existing Submissions" available and when I look in the upper right, my name is not there. It still says Sign In. It seems that when you open patent center in a new tab, the sign in does not transfer.

Also the same when I open the link from the emailed receipt -- I can already be logged in and then... more »

One of our listserv members reports, A Filer uses "Uploaded ADS" and uploads the ADS and uploads all of the other documents for a new patent application. Filer then discovers there is a mistake in the ADS. Filer goes back to the front of the filing screens. Filer clicks to delete the ADS. Filer gets a warning: Removing this application data sheet will result in all previously entered bibliographic data being removed.... more »

Is there a way to return to the original search list after viewing individual results from the list? For example, a search parameter returns a list of 10 applications. I click on the first application on the list to view the application details, but I cannot return to the original search list to review the other 9 applications, without having to re-enter the search parameters again. Please provide a way to return to the... more »

By default, all customer numbers are chosen when going between modules in Workbench (i.e., Saved Submissions, Applications, and Correspondence). Instead, I suggest that once a customer number set (or single customer number) is selected in one module, that the same selection applies to the other two modules. For example, if I choose customer #12345 alone in the Applications module, then Saved Submissions and Correspondence... more »

One of our listserv members observes: the "update application address" function of Private PAIR is missing from Patentcenter. This is an important feature and should not disappear in Patent Center

This is Patentcenter Feature Request FR19 in the PatentCenter Feature Request web page maintained by the PatentCenter listserv at https://patentcenter-tickets.oppedahl.com/patentcenter-feature-requests/.

PAIR formats PCT application numbers as PCT/USyy/nnnnn, while Espacenet formats PCT application numbers as PCT/USyyyy/nnnnnn, with PAIR dropping leading zeros.

Both are valid, but the difference means that automatic checking systems flag differences between what's in PAIR and your records if you use the Espacenet format, and between what's in Espacenet and your records if you use the PAIR format. It would really be good... more »

One of our listserv members reports: Sorting applications in the workbench by patent number does not work correctly.

The coders who designed the Patentcenter workbench made a mistake in the "sort by patent number" function. The way I encountered this mistake by the Patentcenter coders is that I had hoped to generate a list of the most recent three issued US utility patents that we obtained in our work for a particular... more »

When we receive records of credit card charges for paying PTO fees in connection with Patent Center filings, the records do not show our attorney docket numbers for the cases at issue. That makes accounting on our end quite difficult, as we need to manually correlate the records with our case numbers. We do not encounter this problem with filings through EFS. So this seems like something that the PTO could fix in Patent... more »

One of our listserv members requests: Patentcenter should validate a would-be priority claim against DAS when possible.

Getting a priority claim wrong in a patent application is a serious matter. There's a super-simple thing that ePCT does to prevent many ways of getting priority claims wrong, that Patentcenter fails to do. Of course, Patentcenter should do the same validation that ePCT does — cross-checking against... more »