Ant-like persistence (@oppedahl.com)

Ant-like persistence

@oppedahl.com

Carl Oppedahl at https://blog.oppedahl.com

blog.oppedahl.comIt seems ChatGPT can replace me for some patent tasksToday I did an experiment. The goal was to find out whether ChatGPT can replace me for some patent tasks. It seems the answer is “yes”.

Ant-like persistence

@oppedahl.com

20 Aug

blog.oppedahl.comWIPO is yet again customer friendlyThis blog article describes yet another nice customer experience with WIPO. I was delighted to find that WIPO makes it so that I can “call for free” to WIPO. And the person who answer…

Ant-like persistence

@oppedahl.com

19 July

blog.oppedahl.comSecond successful DMR activityA few days ago was my first-ever successful DMR (digital mobile radio) activity (blog article). Today was my second — I participated in a World Wide Check-In.

Ant-like persistence

@oppedahl.com

13 July

blog.oppedahl.comFirst successful DMR activityIt turns out that there is a thing called DMR or digital mobile radio (Wikipedia article). This is a thing that some radio amateurs do. To do DMR, you use a “hot spot” such as the one s…

Ant-like persistence

@oppedahl.com

28 June

blog.oppedahl.comAttend a two-presenter, 2½-day live in-person Patent Cooperation Treaty seminar in beautiful ColoradoLong-time PCT enthusiasts will appreciate that in recent years, there have been few opportunities in the US to get high quality PCT training with more than one experienced presenter on the dais. Su…

Ant-like persistence

@oppedahl.com

24 June

blog.oppedahl.comSave the date! Next PCT Seminar September 22-24, 2026Save the date! The next PCT Seminar will be September 22-24, 2026 near the Denver airport.

Ant-like persistence

@oppedahl.com

19 June

blog.oppedahl.comWhy are shower head nozzles flexible?Over and over again I somehow stumble upon or learn about a thing that seemingly almost everybody else already knew. Today’s question is, why are shower head nozzles flexible? You probably …

Ant-like persistence

@oppedahl.com

12 June

blog.oppedahl.comAn Office Action in the red-hair-and-tinsel trademark caseNow there is an Office Action in the red-hair-and-tinsel trademark application (previous blog article). You can see the TSDR page and the Office Action. The Examining Attorney gives several bases…

Ant-like persistence

@oppedahl.com

12 June

blog.oppedahl.comGlobal IP Assignment Platform (GIPAP)I am intrigued to hear about a WIPO initiative called the “Global IP Assignment Platform” (GIPAP). I suggest that interested practitioners and IP owners register for one of these upcoming WIPO web…

Ant-like persistence

@oppedahl.com

17 May

blog.oppedahl.comNew effort to secure a luggage tracking tagIt will be recalled (blog article, April 30, 2026) that recently I had a luggage tracking tag get knocked loose from my suitcase and the tag ended up at an airport in Portugal. Thanks to comments …

Ant-like persistence

@oppedahl.com

16 May

blog.oppedahl.comUSPTO handling Unicode poorly in trademarksThe Trademark Office at the USPTO does not handle Unicode characters well. This blog post discusses a recent example of this.

Ant-like persistence

@oppedahl.com

14 May

blog.oppedahl.com“the only other thing I can recommend is just use Word” – EBC adviceWell, the unspoken thing has just been spoken. “The only other thing I can recommend is just use [Microsoft] Word.”

Ant-like persistence

@oppedahl.com

14 May

blog.oppedahl.comUSPTO’s non-DOCX surcharge rears its ugly head againThe USPTO’s non-DOCX surcharge is now rearing its ugly head again. Let’s see if, between now and tomorrow, May 15, 2026, the USPTO people in charge of the non-DOCX penalty provide dece…

Ant-like persistence

@oppedahl.com

13 May

blog.oppedahl.comUSPTO’s Trademark Center frozenYesterday I sent a US trademark application to a client to review and e-sign. Today came the email from Trademark Center telling me the client had e-signed it. I was invited to click to pay the m…

Ant-like persistence

@oppedahl.com

12 May

blog.oppedahl.comThe mark consists of the trade dress of the specific combination of red hair and sparkly pink hair tinselIt looks like an attorney in Florida hopes to get exclusive rights to have red hair with pink tinsel, as trade dress for attorney services. No, I am not making this up.

Ant-like persistence

@oppedahl.com

12 May

blog.oppedahl.comEnd-to-end RCS encryption soon to come to iPhonesAfter many years of foot-dragging, Apple is reluctantly making end-to-end encryption available for RCS messaging.

Ant-like persistence

@oppedahl.com

12 May

blog.oppedahl.comPCT training in San Francisco on Wednesday, May 13Are you attending the AIPLA Spring 2026 meeting at the San Francisco Fairmont hotel? If so, I invite you to attend some PCT training on Wednesday, May 13 from 4PM to 6PM in the French Room. Your …

Ant-like persistence

@oppedahl.com

8 May

blog.oppedahl.comThe 2025 intellectual property toteboards have been postedIt is my honor to post: the fourteenth annual US Design Patent Toteboard, the eleventh annual US Trademark Registration Toteboard, the eleventh annual US Utility Patent Toteboard, and the seventh a…

Ant-like persistence

@oppedahl.com

7 May

blog.oppedahl.comGood news for those who use ISA/EP and IPEA/EPWhat we see today is some user-friendliness on the part of the European Patent Office. EPO is now making it even easier than before for PCT applicants to receive communications electronically fro…

Ant-like persistence

@oppedahl.com

30 Apr

blog.oppedahl.comMy luggage tracking tag ended up in PortugalI use luggage tracking tags. As you can see from the map at right, it looks like my medium-sized suitcase is at Porto Airport in Portugal. Actually the suitcase is with me right now at home in th…

Ant-like persistence

@oppedahl.com

30 Apr

blog.oppedahl.comWhere my blog traffic comes from?I find it interesting that nowadays, a lot of my blog traffic comes from Reddit.

Ant-like persistence

@oppedahl.com

30 Apr

blog.oppedahl.comToday, Google cut off another 48 members of the e-Trademarks listservFor more than thirty years I have sponsored The Listservs. Each listserv is an email discussion group. I have sponsored listservs for patent practitioners, for trademark practitioners, and for in…

Ant-like persistence

@oppedahl.com

28 Apr

blog.oppedahl.comUSPTO corrects its new web siteTwo days ago I blogged (see blog article) about a hallucination on the USPTO’s new web site, namely the existence of a “provisional patent”. The web site said: File a provision…

Ant-like persistence

@oppedahl.com

26 Apr

blog.oppedahl.comAdding an air pressure sensor to a Meshtastic rooftop solar nodeRecently I added an environmental sensor to a rooftop solar meshtastic node. This provides telemetry of temperature, humidity, and air pressure. In this article I describe what was required to ac…

Ant-like persistence

@oppedahl.com

25 Apr

blog.oppedahl.comUSPTO hallucinates the “provisional patent”There is no such thing as a “provisional patent”. Everyone knows this. Everyone except, it turns out, the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

Ant-like persistence

@oppedahl.com

21 Apr

blog.oppedahl.comWhat kinds of USPTO communications are secure and not secure?When I was first in practice, a long time ago, the only ways to communicate with a patent examiner at the USPTO were: postal mail (and couriers) telephone calls fax hand-carry. The USPTO’s po…

Ant-like persistence

@oppedahl.com

16 Apr

blog.oppedahl.comWhat to make of the threats from AI that jeopardize software that we all rely upon?Recent news articles talk about instances where Anthropic’s Mythos AI is said to have found software flaws in pieces of software that have been around for a long time. The pieces of software…

Ant-like persistence

@oppedahl.com

14 Apr

blog.oppedahl.comHappy World Quantum Day!I must confess I was not aware, until a few moments ago, that there was such a thing as a World Quantum Day. You can see the Wikipedia page about World Quantum Day. You can see a nice video with so…

Ant-like persistence

@oppedahl.com

11 Apr

blog.oppedahl.comTwo USPTO people need to be retrained, and I don’t know their namesTwo USPTO people need to be retrained, and I don’t know their names. I don’t even know how to reach the supervisor of either of those USPTO people. In the old days, I would just drop …

Ant-like persistence

@oppedahl.com

3 Apr

blog.oppedahl.comUsing a trademark as a nounAs any experienced trademark practitioner will tell you, it is a big mistake to use a trademark as a noun. Using a trademark as a noun (e.g., “Pass me a Kleenex”) instead of an adjecti…

Ant-like persistence

@oppedahl.com

3 Apr

blog.oppedahl.comSort of a Y2K problem with gasoline pumpsMany long-time readers of this blog will recall the anxieties leading up to the year 2000. The worry was that some software systems, to squeeze more information into less memory, were storing only…

Ant-like persistence

@oppedahl.com

3 Apr

blog.oppedahl.comLegrand has (maybe) restored its Eliot cloud to normal functionIt will be recalled (blog article) that Legrand had permitted its Eliot cloud to fall into disrepair. It appears that Legrand has restored its Eliot cloud to normal function.

Ant-like persistence

@oppedahl.com

13 Feb

blog.oppedahl.comDealing with fragile USB C “power delivery” charging portsMost readers of my blog will recall my blog article dated March 2, 2020 entitled Charging port redundancy. The article talked about how nice it is if a maker of a notebook computer would set it up…

Ant-like persistence

@oppedahl.com

12 Feb

blog.oppedahl.comRecent tools added to the Section-101 toolboxFor the patent practitioner who represents clients whose patent applications get rejected over Section 101, some new tools have recently been added to the practitioner’s toolbox that might he…

Ant-like persistence

@oppedahl.com

12 Feb

blog.oppedahl.comUnacceptable USPTO delays in forwarding responses to ExaminersWe have a case in Technology Center 2100 in which we responded to a non-final Office Action on September 15, 2025. Normally such a response would have gotten forwarded to the Examiner (by the LIE) …

Ant-like persistence

@oppedahl.com

12 Feb

blog.oppedahl.comInformed delivery now available for more business mailing addressesOne of the places where our firm receives mail is a post office box. As recently as a couple of years ago, the USPS did not permit our firm to sign up for informed delivery with respect to our pos…

Ant-like persistence

@oppedahl.com

5 Feb

blog.oppedahl.comYet another round of sanctions for using AI-hallucinated case citationsHere is a sanctions order in a patent litigation case in federal district court in Kansas. Several lawyers permitted their names to appear in a signature block of a brief. The brief contained a c…

Ant-like persistence

@oppedahl.com

1 Feb

blog.oppedahl.comRare Planetary Alignment on February 28, 2026Hello dear readers. On and around February 28, there will be opportunities to see several planets in the sky. This will be shortly after sunset. The planets that will be easy to see are Venus, J…

Ant-like persistence

@oppedahl.com

29 Jan

blog.oppedahl.comIt’s time to get in your numbers for the 2025 toteboardsHello readers. It is now 2026 and this means it is time to get in your numbers for the 2025 toteboards: Fourteenth Annual US design patent toteboard Eleventh Annual US utility patent toteboard Sev…

Ant-like persistence

@oppedahl.com

29 Jan

blog.oppedahl.comOver 3000 trademark registrations likely soon to be stricken from the RegisterThe USPTO has issued a show-cause order dated January 27, 2026 which you can see here. The order has an Exhibit A listing 3361 trademark applications. The order sets a thirty-day period (ending o…

Ant-like persistence

@oppedahl.com

25 Jan

blog.oppedahl.comBarnes & Noble cheats Nook customersFor years I have hoped that Barnes & Noble would, through its Nook service, serve as a competent ebook competitor to Amazon’s Kindle service. My recent experience with Nook is a complete…

Ant-like persistence

@oppedahl.com

23 Jan

blog.oppedahl.comHundreds of emails lost due to Microsoft crashWe all see in the news that earlier today (Thursday, January 22) Microsoft had some massive internal crash that affected lots of people who had selected Microsoft (aka Outlook) to handle their emai…

Ant-like persistence

@oppedahl.com

12 Jan

blog.oppedahl.comShould the listserv member click on the link? Is it spearphishing?Oppedahl Patent Law Firm LLC (“OPLF”) sponsors many listservs (email discussion groups for intellectual property professionals), some with over a thousand members. In recent days, hun…

Ant-like persistence

@oppedahl.com

8 Jan

blog.oppedahl.comUSPTO’s Patent Center says: “There was an error”I was paying an Issue Fee in Patent Center, I clicked “submit”, and at right you can see what happened next. “There was an error”. That’s it. The developers of Patent…

Ant-like persistence

@oppedahl.com

30 Dec 2025

blog.oppedahl.comListservs seem to be back in serviceHello listserv colleagues! I think the listservs are more or less back in service. But for about 30% of our listserv members, the member’s email service provider (ESP) is blocking our posti…

Ant-like persistence

@oppedahl.com

28 Dec 2025

blog.oppedahl.comMaybe you have not used this kind of two-factor authentication for Patent Center?Day-to-day users of Patent Center are accustomed to the USPTO’s requirement that you provide two-factor authentication (“2FA”) as part of the login process. It turns out that you…

Ant-like persistence

@oppedahl.com

25 Dec 2025

blog.oppedahl.comUSPTO backdates outgoing correspondenceToday (Christmas Day, December 25, 2025) the USPTO for the first time emailed outgoing correspondence notifications (OCNs, shown at right) for three pieces of outgoing patent correspondence that ha…

Ant-like persistence

@oppedahl.com

25 Dec 2025

blog.oppedahl.comThe listservs are brokenThe executive summary is: the listservs are broken. I am working on getting them back into service.

Ant-like persistence

@oppedahl.com

29 Nov 2025

blog.oppedahl.comWhich commercial e-signature platforms does the USPTO recognize?On March 22, 2024 the USPTO published a Federal Register Notice saying that the USPTO would start accepting electronic signatures generated by some commercial e-signature platforms. You can see, a…

Ant-like persistence

@oppedahl.com

26 Nov 2025

blog.oppedahl.comLearning to guess outcomes of appeals of 2d refusalsThanks to John L. Welch’s hundreds of blog articles about 2d refusals, I have gotten to the point where sometimes I can guess correctly the outcome of an ex parte appeal of a 2d refusal. The…