Section 293 and Baseball
The following was written by my colleague, Darby & Darby principal, Steve Lipman.
In my recent efforts to learn the name of the “Section 293 Notice” representative of a client’s U.S. patent, I came upon the following incredible story. By the way, for those of you who may not know about a “Section 293 Notice,” it is a provision of Title 35 that gives a foreign owner of a U.S. patent the option of designating a U.S. representative for service of process relative to its U.S. patent; otherwise, the foreign owner can be sued on the patent in the District Court for the District of Columbia.
Since I was informed by a client that it believed it had designated a 293 representative in NY, I looked in PAIR to confirm that belief. Strike number one. I then searched the entire PTO website to find where such information may exist in the bowels of the PTO. Strike number two. Now, with bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth, I telephoned the PTO directly and, after speaking to four different people in four different PTO “departments” – none of whom had ever heard of Section 293, I thought I had struck out and left all three runners on base …. but then, as I was about to drag my bat back to the dugout, my phone rang. It was Marilyn Ricks (703.756.1169), the Manager of a “Records Branch” in “Shirlington.” Since I spent 11 years at the PTO I knew Shirlington well (it is just South of Arlington, VA, where the PTO used to be located ), and still includes a great movie theater that my wife and I used to frequent, Ms. Ricks (an incredibly sweet and friendly person) and I hit it off immediately. (Get the “hit” pun?). By the way, the alleged “NY-style” delicatessen that used to be in Shirlington left town long ago (as I did), but I was always bothered by the fact that my first lunch at the “Shirlington Deli” included a pastrami sandwich served on white bread
Ms. Ricks admitted sheepishly that she really did not know too much about Section 293, but she did reveal that there was a “Green Ledger Book” in her Records Branch that has hand-written entries "about 293.” Ms. Ricks had no idea how “the Book” made its way to her Branch, but it was her understanding that “the Book” had been around since about 1960. The bad news for me, however, was that not a single hand-written entry had been made in “the Book” since 2004 – thus likely indicating, assuming no mistake had been made by the Records Branch, that no such NY representative had been designated by the client under Section 293 – or attempted to be recorded in the PTO by the client. Ms. Ricks and I shared a couple of laughs about “the Book,” and then said our goodbyes with some nice memories about the ol’ Shirlington Movie Theater.
One of several morals to this story is that the PTO is not as “E-savvy” as it portrays itself. Another moral is that baseball is a wonderful game, especially when one plays catch with ones father on a beautiful cornfield.
Steve Lipman
In my recent efforts to learn the name of the “Section 293 Notice” representative of a client’s U.S. patent, I came upon the following incredible story. By the way, for those of you who may not know about a “Section 293 Notice,” it is a provision of Title 35 that gives a foreign owner of a U.S. patent the option of designating a U.S. representative for service of process relative to its U.S. patent; otherwise, the foreign owner can be sued on the patent in the District Court for the District of Columbia.
Since I was informed by a client that it believed it had designated a 293 representative in NY, I looked in PAIR to confirm that belief. Strike number one. I then searched the entire PTO website to find where such information may exist in the bowels of the PTO. Strike number two. Now, with bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth, I telephoned the PTO directly and, after speaking to four different people in four different PTO “departments” – none of whom had ever heard of Section 293, I thought I had struck out and left all three runners on base …. but then, as I was about to drag my bat back to the dugout, my phone rang. It was Marilyn Ricks (703.756.1169), the Manager of a “Records Branch” in “Shirlington.” Since I spent 11 years at the PTO I knew Shirlington well (it is just South of Arlington, VA, where the PTO used to be located ), and still includes a great movie theater that my wife and I used to frequent, Ms. Ricks (an incredibly sweet and friendly person) and I hit it off immediately. (Get the “hit” pun?). By the way, the alleged “NY-style” delicatessen that used to be in Shirlington left town long ago (as I did), but I was always bothered by the fact that my first lunch at the “Shirlington Deli” included a pastrami sandwich served on white bread
Ms. Ricks admitted sheepishly that she really did not know too much about Section 293, but she did reveal that there was a “Green Ledger Book” in her Records Branch that has hand-written entries "about 293.” Ms. Ricks had no idea how “the Book” made its way to her Branch, but it was her understanding that “the Book” had been around since about 1960. The bad news for me, however, was that not a single hand-written entry had been made in “the Book” since 2004 – thus likely indicating, assuming no mistake had been made by the Records Branch, that no such NY representative had been designated by the client under Section 293 – or attempted to be recorded in the PTO by the client. Ms. Ricks and I shared a couple of laughs about “the Book,” and then said our goodbyes with some nice memories about the ol’ Shirlington Movie Theater.
One of several morals to this story is that the PTO is not as “E-savvy” as it portrays itself. Another moral is that baseball is a wonderful game, especially when one plays catch with ones father on a beautiful cornfield.
Steve Lipman
Labels: USPTO
posted by Mark P. Walters @ 9:22 AM
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