Not just one -- two! two! letters to sign about DOCX TODAY

[David Boundy]

Item 1.  If you haven't already done so, please circulate this email within your firm, and to colleagues at other firms.

Item 2.  Carl just let you know about one letter to sign. https://blog.oppedahl.com/?page_id=9737   Carl doesn't specify a time limit -- just sign it.  SIgn it early in the day.  It takes a couple hours to get these letters in final form, and the automated submission portal closes at midnight eastern.

Item 3.  Here is a second letter --

       https://drive.google.com/file/d/1oYTRwwv15yxeXOFsD5fwwHjUeJQqk-li/view?usp=sharing

Signup list here:-- signups close at 3PM (eastern), noon (Pacific) today --

       https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Nr1S8biYcgckK5uqOGF4MlXo7vrDrrjKZ_P5kW9z-Mg/edit?usp=sharing

Item 4.  A third signup, for PTAAARMIGAN, the Patent and Trademark Attorneys, Agents, and Applicants for Restoration and Maintenance of Integrity of Government. 

       https://ptaaarmigan.org/join-now-2/

Item 5.  If you are so inclined, you can write your own letter (even a short paragraph).  The four topics for comment are toward the bottom of the page at https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/06/06/2023-11913/agency-information-collection-activities-submission-to-the-office-of-management-and-budget-omb-for at heading "IV. Request for Comments"  You can also comment that the cost-benefit ratio is "disproportionate" and that DOCX is not "necessary for performance of functions of the agency."  The "submit comments" is the green box at the upper right corner.

FYI 6.  Here's what both letters are about.  Under the Paperwork Reduction Act, the Patent Office has to get a clearance (called a "control number") from the Office of Management and Budget before the PTO can enforce.  To get that clearance, the PTO is required to estimate total burden (with evidence in support of those estimates), request public comment on those estimates (that's this phase -- 60 days ends today), respond to those public comments (fairly), file a request at OMB that includes all the comment letters and responds to them.  Then then the public will have a second opportunity to comment directly to OMB (30 days).

For the DOCX rule, the PTO skipped all of this -- in the 2019 Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, thee PTO didn't estimate burden (instead, they made the risibly false claim to have already obtained a clearance), the PTO didn't ask comment on the required issues, the PTO didn't fairly respond to comments, etc.  So now in 2023, they're trying to cure these omissions four years later.  This is typical PTO rulemaking nonsense -- transparent falsehoods, skipping required elements of the analysis, claims with no evidence, ignoring the hard questions raised in past comments or responding with non sequiturs or falsehoods, etc.  The two letters point out error after error after error.

This is the same posture in which comment letters killed the CLE rule two years ago, killed the appeal rule in 2009, killed the continuations and claims and IDS and Markush rule in 2008-2010, and a couple others I'm forgetting now.  The most remarkable thing here is the PTO's pattern of doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

As lawyers, we're all conditioned to think that arguments win by force of logic, even if it's a single party and single lawyer.  This is a much more political decision -- numbers matter.  Please sign both.

     

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