USTPO Ending After-Hours Customer Service Window
The USPTO just announced that the hours for the Customer Service Window, where papers could be filed in person, would be limited going forward to 8:30 am to 5:00 pm ET, Mondays through Friday (except federal holidays and when the USPTO is closed). Previously the window was open to receive papers until 11:59 pm ET Monday through Friday.
This ends a tradition of over a century of the availability of after-hours, in-person filing of patent papers, enabling last-minute filers in the DC area to personally file papers and obtain a filing date, or a timely response date. For example, Rule 12 of the 1916 Patent Office Rules of Practice provided for deposit of papers up until midnight:
Special-delivery letters and other papers may be deposited in a box provided at the watchman's desk at the F Street entrance of the Patent Office up to midnight, and all papers deposited therein are entered as received in the Patent Office on the day of deposit.Of course the ability to file papers with a certificate of mailing or by Priority Mail Express, and more recently by electronic filing, has done away with the need to be able to file papers in person. For a survey of where the latest filings may be made by mail and electronic filing, see my earlier piece, “Post Offices at the End of the Earth.”
The attorneys at Renner Otto will continue to monitor this and other developments as they occur at the USPTO. Contact us for more information.
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