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December 08, 2004
Silver Lining to Fee Increases
The latest fee hikes at the Patent Office have taken hold, which is normally no cause for celebration. (Thankfully, I filed an application yesterday and saved a client some money.)
However, there is a silver lining: there is now a fee break for electronic filing. Hopefully, this will encourage more and more people to work the kinks out of the electronic filing system and incorporate it into their everyday processes.
I have filed a few applications electronically and overall it works well. Like any new software application, it takes time to learn the interface and figure out how the process works. Budget some time for the first couple filings, but once the process is learned, I find it much faster than conventional paper filing.
I don’t have the luxury (or liability) of handing my filings off to a paralegal staff, so the time savings and convenience is important to me. Of course, saving the staff a few minutes for each application should also be a priority for larger law firms.
Each time that I have had to call the PTO regarding electronic filing questions, I have had my problem resolved by very helpful and knowledgeable people at the PTO who were eager to track down a problem and resolve it quickly.
Posted by krajec at December 8, 2004 02:14 PM
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Comments
Russ,
Nice blog. Thanks for the EFS info. I think that we are going to start using it more often once I convince people that running to the post office at 11:45 pm is not a good thing.
-Ted
Posted by: Theodore McCullough at December 11, 2004 11:19 AM
Russ:
I agree that the breeak for electronic filing is a silver lining in the new fee schedule. I only wish the legislation would have really made it a carrot -- as it stands, the break only applies to small entities. I believe the motivation for law firms to invest the time and effort needed to master EFS wont be realized until a break applies to large entities as well.
-Matt
Posted by: J. Matthew Buchanan at December 14, 2004 11:28 AM