The USPTO has issued a set of proposed fee changes with public comments due September 30, 2019 (fee.setting@uspto.gov). Basically, all of the fees are going up by around 5-10% with a few much higher.
Major proposed new fees:
- New Fee: Non-DOCX Application Filing Surcharge Fee of $400
- New Fee: Annual Fee for Patent Practitioner
Significant Fee Adjustments:
- Late maintenance fee payment – $500 up from $160.
- Expedited Design Patent Examination – $2,000 up from $900.
- Utility Filing + Search + Examination Fees – $1,720 up 6% from $1620
- Utility Issue Fee – $1,200 up 20% from $1,000.
- First Maintenance Fee – $2,000 up 24% from $1,600.
- Provisional Application Fee – $300 up from $280.
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2019/07/31/2019-15727/setting-and-adjusting-patent-fees-during-fiscal-year-2020
Shifty, Shifty, Shifty,
You almost started an interesting discussion with your executive order point, but then you quickly bailed into gamery.
You do know that it is ok to have actual conversations, right?
I love the fact that my pal Shifty is still trying.
It would be better though if he were to put his new threads “at the top” instead of nesting them well beyond the numerical system for replies.
Shifty would do much better (and show that he was interested in more than his mere gamery of hunting for a “gotcha” moment), were he to actually try to engage in a conversation with his additions of “examiner nuggets.”
He might even see that we have points that we agree upon.
Alas, it appears that such is not within his desire.
He appears to think that somehow continuing to post well down below on expended reply count indicator threads is somehow magically delicious.
Silly rabbit.
In trying to play another “gotcha” game, our shifting historical pseudonym friend has inadvertently stumbled upon another problem with the package for increased fees.
That is: expected filings were not met in volume.
Shifty does not include whether or not this trend impacts the future expected filings.
One may be interested in knowing that the USPTO price model is a “zero-profit” model.
That model then appears to drive price increases for services dwindling in demand.
This may accentuate a “death spiral” — and certainly should draw the attention of the Office of Management and Budget (and various bureaucratic cost rules and impact analysis)
As Shifty is clearly of the Examiner Corp, he may be seeing these ramifications in a more personal manner.
(Shifty, note how a new topic as a sub-thread is formed by posting at top)
…and talking about (you know, substantive items), I found this from our pal Dave Boundy:
link to uspto.gov
Well down below, our shifting historical-pseudonym friend ventures into a completely different subject with:
“As a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and a party to the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual-Property Rights (TRIPS), the United States is obligated to provide trade secret protection.”
Did you want to flesh that out? You are aware perhaps that it has only been recently that the US (on a Federal level) has had a law on the books “protecting trade secrets,” eh? (one that does not pre-empt the longstanding arena of Trade Secret protection: State laws)
As to DOCX, read Carl Oppedahl’s comment:
link to uspto.gov
The USPTO’s IT infrastructure is a patchwork, lacking consistency in formats and sewn together of multiple standards and NON-standards, as well as proprietary goop. Some pdf viewers don’t work. The USPTO is too closely aligned with monopolies, like who has a special API?
The EPO’s IT is streamlined and head-n-shoulders above that of the USPTO. Just do a little programming and you will see.
The USPTO needs to re-think its IT and be world class, rather than world crash – every week I see significant glitches. I email EBC, but they are limited.
The USPTO is not ready for DOCX, but who cares, the monopolies want to force it down users’ throats to make the process more difficult and costly.
Have you seen Boundy’s letter on point?
Please review numbers:
Utility Filing + Search + Examination Fees – $1,720 up 6% from $1620
Unless I’m missing something, the current is $1,720 and the increase is $1,820.
I think that this pending PTO rule proposal there should be a real concern among patent attorneys and agents who do not keep up with changes like this. Specifically, the likely new required annual fee for maintaining their PTO patent practice registrations.
In my prior experiences, quite a few patent attorneys did not even promptly provide the PTO OED with their current mailing address when they moved. Their former firm or company may well not forward to them PTO OED warning letters that they will no longer be registered to practice patent matters in the PTO due to missing their annual fee payment, even IF the OED does try to warn them. They might continue to file papers in the PTO after having been removed from the Roster.
Assuming “we’re going to party like it’s 2009” (last time specific practitioner retention fee came up), will the fee be $168, today’s value of the previously-proposed $118 fee?
More fundamentally, where in the patent laws is there an authorization for this agency to make up brand new fees out of the blue (practitioner fees, anti-pdf fees)?
As opposed to what does seem to be authorized by law, e.g., bumping existing fees upward to cover projected costs?
Kind of an aside, but please hep a non-IT feller out if you will – why are PDFs bad? Harder on the publications section than docx?
Note to self; read comments bottom up first. Looks like DB’s already covered what I asked.
As far as I can tell, PDFs don’t inherently store the text–sometimes the PDF is just an image of the document, meaning to extract the text an OCR process must be applied. Since the OCR isn’t perfect, it causes problems for the publication and the examiners
fair points.
◾New Fee: Non-DOCX Application Filing Surcharge Fee of $400
◾New Fee: Annual Fee for Patent Practitioner
The first of these is more like a “whip” to encourage particular behaviors. These need to be set high. I don’t have a problem with that sort of thing.
The second fee is … odd. Beyond paying to maintain the list of practitioners and enter the name in the PTO’s database, what is the money going towards exactly? And why “annual”? How about a one time only payment? Or once every five years? Why introduce more transactions than necessary?
As stated before, my preference would be for the PTO to start ratcheting excess claim fees up a lot higher and put some limits (or pressure) on the number of patent applications being filed and owned by single entities (including their subsidiaries). In other words, at a certain point, tax the most prolific users of the system and put an effective lid on the amount of patent IP that a single entity can control. The goal would be to increase competition in whatever fields are “carved out” by a particular entity, and to diminish the likelihood of an entity — particularly a non-practicing entity — from having too much control over any area of scientific/technical endeavor.
If you want to increase competition (in a meaningful manner), do NOT attempt to cap out innovation protection.
That and the abject
F
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that you exhibit in understanding how administrative agencies are supposed to work in our system of government merely represent more of your (in)famous cognitive dissonance.
Maybe try reading what Dave Boundy linked to…
“If you want to increase competition, do not limit government granted monopoly powers in any way.”
Funny stuff. And coming from a glibertarian! Better yet.
Your “one-bucketing” is noted.
Try thinking first (and recognizing that first and foremost, I have always been PRO-innovation protection).
Supposedly, you serve clients wanting a strong pro-innovation protection set of laws (hence the notes as to your cognitive dissonance).
I’m not “bucketing” anything. You’re a glibertarian and you’re a ridiculous low-IQ hypocrite. That’s not “bucketing”. That’s just another example of an already proven correlation.
LOL
[shrugs]
Keep on [shrugging] as you have no proof of anything – while you put in black and white the proof of my statement.
Believe it: people have a whole spectrum of views, and just do not fit into your “me or everyone else” buckets.
Believe it: people have a whole spectrum of views
Right. You want to make it easier for patent holders to sue people with junk patents AND you believe that “political correctness is the worst thing ever”. The whole spectrum! You’re so super complicated and full of surprises, not like all those other glibertarians who start barking about communism anytime someone proposes to diminish income disparity. Oh but wait — you suffer from that illness, too. The whole spectrum, indeed.
LOL
Not like all those others…
You just can’t help yourself, can’t you?
“In other words, at a certain point, tax the most prolific users of the system and put an effective lid on the amount of patent IP that a single entity can control. The goal would be to increase competition in whatever fields are “carved out” by a particular entity, and to diminish the likelihood of an entity — particularly a non-practicing entity — from having too much control over any area of scientific/technical endeavor.”
The most distinctly leftist way to encourage people/entities to not control/possess “too much” of a thing … taxes. Not saying it is a hugely bad idea here, but I am not on board with it at this time as there does not seem to be any pressing need for such.
By all means let’s wait until the disaster is staring us in the face before we do anything! After all, these are wealthy entitled people and making it more costly for them to procure their 50,000th patent would be sooooo unfair.
Gee – if we run into a “bad” situation in which patents are used as a stick and force others to innovate around the granted patents, we may spur innovation (the adage: necessity is the mother of invention)…
0h wait…
“By all means let’s wait until the disaster is staring us in the face before we do anything!”
It might be a problem in some areas, I cannot say. All I will say for sure is that I have not heard anyone btching about the high numbers of patents held by corps in my area. In all of 15 yearsish of being in the field I haven’t heard one person btch about this once. And there are a lot of corps that have a lot of patents in my field.
All I will say for sure is that I have not heard anyone btching about the high numbers of patents held by corps in my area.
That’s nice. I have never known or expected you to be particularly creative, or to even look for creative thinking unless it involves taking a sh-t on women or some minority group that doesn’t fit into your childish “Western Civilization Is Teh Greatest In Universe!” mythology.
“I have never known or expected you to be particularly creative”
You should see muh arts from before I really got to full time work. I’m from 2x exhippy artist parents that would be starving if not for their boomer priv. They did instill some creativity. I’ve been thinking of reviving my arts. If not for just a hobby. I’m unironically literally inspired by recent social events.
“I have never known or expected you to be particularly creative, or to even look for creative thinking unless it involves taking a sh-t on women or some minority group”
I have never in my life sha t upon a whamen or a “minority”. Although a friend of mine literally did one time, when they were dating, I told him to marry that non-white girl, she is an attorney (tho doing low pay work, of her own volition) but he didn’t. But he did marry some other grl. Somewhat predictably an ebil white grl (he’s pretty leftist). Throwing a fund raiser for cancer stuff I see on my facebook. This is the same bruh that literally flew in from washington state to vote in VA before he officially moved back to washington from VA to stop me and other VAians from saving 500$ in VA state taxes (the republican’s tax plan saving 10% across the board). Considering that, how much should I donate MM?
“that doesn’t fit into your childish “Western Civilization Is Teh Greatest In Universe!” mythology.”
MM, come on bruh, you know good and well that whamen and minorities fit very well into the muh Western Civ is the gr8test myth, even if it was “mine”. Exquisitely in fact. *raises ebil pinky finger*. Their fitting in is literally why you ha te it.
I feel like I should just drop this here vidya right here as it is a nice vidya for people to watch.
link to youtube.com
RE: “The Office proposes to implement an annual active patent practitioner fee under 37 CFR 1.21 and 11.8.
“Currently, the costs of OED’s disciplinary and other functions are paid by patent applicants and owners. The Office proposes these fees so that practitioners, who directly benefit from registration, should bear the costs associated with maintaining the integrity of their profession, including the costs of OED’s register maintenance and disciplinary functions. This parallels the way many state bars operate where the services of maintaining the bar are often paid by the attorneys who are members of that bar. Accordingly, these fee collections are proposed to shift the costs of the services OED provides practitioners in administering the disciplinary system and register maintenance from patent applicants and owners to the practitioners.”
— The logic underlying the USPTO’s rationale for this new fee is flawed. The USPTO mistakenly assumes that practitioners won’t just shift this cost back to patent applicants and owners through their legal services fees.
There is a requisite “zero-sum” aspect to all fee changes (including— especially — fee increases).
Do the proposed changes include this necessary element? If so, are there assumptions or trends that should bear more scrutiny?
The proposed fee changes are absurd. The notice talks about the fees being necessary for “patent quality”, but that’s b.s. Unless and until the PTO starts holding examiners accountable for improper rejections of allowable claims, for failing to cite everything they could in the first OA rather than withholding to the second OA and using the citation of the withheld references as an excuse to make the second action final, and for procedural abuses, the quality of the PTO’s operations won’t improve.
This rulemaking is very puzzling. There are a number of laws that bear on federal agency fee setting — Constitutional limits on the taxing power, the Independent Offices Appropriations Act, the Administrative Procedure Act, the Paperwork Reduction Act, the Regulatory Flexibility Act, and others. The AIA gave the PTO some exemptions from some provisions, but did not abrogate them entirely. The legislative history makes abundantly clear the limits of the PTO’s exemptions.
This rulemaking is a study in bad agency in-house lawyering, a failure to protect a client from committing illegal acts. My comment letter explains some of the multiple illegal acts proposed, the Constitutional issue, the legislative history, and the like, at link to uspto.gov An article by Ron Katznelson, originally published at 85 Pat TM Copyright J (BNA) 206 (Dec. 7, 2012) is attached to my letter as an exhibit.
Nicely done (admittedly a vast understatement).
One (tongue in cheek) question: if the judicial branch — top to bottom — cannot ‘check themselves’ from rewriting statutory law under the guise of Common Law, why should the executive branch concern themselves with a “knowledgeable and powerful compliance function”…?
Anon —
The biggest difference is that all these statutes and Constitutional provisions are directed to checking the powers of the executive branch. They don’t apply to the judicial branch.
Maybe your concern for the judiciary “rewriting the statutory law under the guise of Common Law” reflects a disconnect between your personal aspiration of where that law ought to lie vs. where as a matter of history it actually lies. Personal aspirational hopes for where the law might be aren’t much help in advising a client about what the law is.
And certainly, as a counter, what the law “is” IS a matter for all attorneys under their various state paths (but that’s a separate discussion, and I would rather focus on your excellent write-up here).
(“paths” ==> “oaths”)
David – will you be submitting a public comment for this latest attempt to implement unconstitutional taxes?
Also, regarding the proposed madatory fee for non-DOCX submission (such as PDF submissions): I’m wondering if your citation on page 8 of 33 (from your prior submission) could be referenced to show that the agency is attempting to encourage or discourage a particular activity beyond its constitutional limit. The PTO admitting in the proposed fee change that:
“The PPAC supports the surcharge on non-DOCX filings. The report expressed that “the USPTO should have the flexibility to incentivize applicants to use filing formats that maximize efficiency for both the USPTO and its stakeholders” PPAC, at 3.” link to federalregister.gov
This seems to be in direct contradiction to the Supreme Court and DC circuit court case you cited:
“Such policy decisions, whereby an agency could, for example, adjust assessments to encourage or discourage a particular activity, would, according to the [Supreme] Court, ‘carr[y] an agency far from its customary orbit’ and infringe on Congress’s exclusive power to levy taxes.5”
“The Supreme Court and D.C. Circuit have interpreted the IOAA to impose several constraints:
1. Congress may lay taxes to “encourage” or “discourage,” as discussed in § I.B, but not agencies.8”
“Nicely done (admittedly a vast understatement).”
Now we get back into full toady mode. Why is that?
Lol – oh, look, Shifty is back – just in time for another beat down.
didn’t answer the question [thinks nobody notices]
Your “question” presupposes a condition not existent, thus is not a question to be answered.
That is also something to be noticed.
Come on Shifty, your gameplaying is just too obvious.
David’s work is par excellence, and if you merely want to label my recognition of that excellent work as “toady,” then you miss the point of David’s writing. Why don’t you try reading what David put together instead of trying to take a dig at me.
“David’s work is par excellence. . . .”
Still doesn’t answer question [everybody notices].
No, toady snowflake, I was reminding you about the beat down where your designated expert embraced my hypothetical (which hypothetical you will never understand).
BTW. Sorry for the beat down.
Your “judgment” is (once again, not altogether unsurprising) vastly askew, as the “beatdown” on the thread you reference was a beat down OF YOU (as Mr. Boundy addressed the fact of your gamesmanship ini finally coming close to reality with a hypothetical that contradicted your beginning position.
Remind all you like: the plain black and white shows just how much you are in error.
(you really need to find some other enjoyment for yourself – you are really bad at this)
… as to your “apology,” meh – I am sorry for all the readers who have to watch you self-flagellate.
Again.
“(which hypothetical you will never understand)”
Thanks for confirming.
You are being gamey (yet again). It is beyond clear that Boundy ripped you a new one.
Desperate, tries deflection [thinks nobody will notice]
Malcolm’s Accuse Others gambit does not work for him — why in the world would you think that it would work for you?
Black and White, baby – it’s all there.
Then goes off in the weeds [everybody notices]. {and plays the race card yet again}
Yet more of that Accuse Others attempted meme…
By the way, that in Black and White is not only NOT a “race card,” but is also your own attempted game being shoved right back into your face.
Or have you forgotten already your very own MISplay with that meme?
Shifty’s self-flagellation continues…
Panics [eats own foot; thinks nobody will notice].
Who is this “Malcolm” character you’re obsessed with?
Lol – it’s you with the panic and the plain fact that your gamey tactics are an abject
F
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But hey, just keep in self-flagellating there.
At least that is something that you can accomplish, my highly INconsequentional shifty friend.
Does not answer question [everybody notices].
{But will answer some made-up question he makes up or will it be . . . another tired insult from the script?}
And . . . Action !!!
Wheeeee!
Shifty keeps trying to play his lame game.
psssst: what is being noticed is that you are just being an arse (mind you, not many people at this point, just make sure that you clean up after you are done self-flagellating).
Here’s an idea Shifty:
Spend all that time and energy of yours that you divert to your attempted “gotcha” games and focus on the underlying patent topics.
You are just not going to succeed at your “gotcha” game, and you have zero chance of relevance in such pursuits.
And it’s . . . another tired insult from the script! You just won me 20 bucks!
You mistake what is tired (and what is from a script)….
(not altogether unsurprising, given your subscription to the vapid Accuse Others meme)
Maybe instead you actually pay attention and take the (rather helpful) advice….
“You mistake what is tired (and what is from a script)….”
So, in your mind, which is tired, and which is from the script?
[Queeg ponders the strawberries; fails to answer question]
Your games are scripted AND tired.
You spend WAY too much energy on meaningless attempts at “gotcha.”
Critical? Sure.
Challenging?
Care to expound on that ?
and . then ?
Your vapid Accuse Others memes are getting tired.
Gotcha.
(I am not the one being gamey)
Who was it that called you gamery, snowflake?
You think way too highly of yourself there Shifty, as there is no “gamery” of mine for you to “call out.”
As was noted in the very first reply to YOUR “gamery” here.
Maybe you should just pay better attention.
Who was it that called you out for gamery, snowflake?
Retreading your comments?
Come now boy, at least try.
Shall I just retread my response to you?
Wheeeeeee!
“Wheeeeeee!”
I do understand that, in your mind, that’s an answer. But I don’t know what your secret code is supposed to mean. Nor do I want to.
What YOU understand is rather unimportant.
Then again, you already know how irrelevant you are, eh?