USPTO Systems Back Online

Posted Tuesday, December 29, 2015.

The USPTO announced mid-day on Monday that the systems affected by the outage caused by the power failure on December 22 were back up and running. I have successfully accessed the systems for filing responses for clients, obtaining new actions and searching for previous patents/applications. While the USPTO says they may need to take systems off line again in the near future to perform more permanent repairs, they will be able to do so in a scheduled fashion with prior notification to its constituents.

At this point, the outage was attributed to an anomaly in power lines feeding power conditioning systems at the USPTO. The anomaly damaged the pair of power conditioning systems, leading to the power outage and subsequent damage to the systems.

The proximity of the outage to the federal Christmas holiday may have been a fortunate occurrence, albeit unlucky for the Information Technology employees and contractors at the patent office who lost their holiday time.

No further updates on the situation should be needed from here.

Blog Archive

2016 (5)
- June (2)
  - Effects of Brexit on Patents
  - Expedited Industrial Design Examination in Brazil For the Olympics
- February (1)
  - Patent Law Authority
- January (2)
  - 2015 Patent Statistics – Bellevue Accounts For 0.63 Percent of All U.S. Patents Issued in 2015
  - North End Patent Statistics – One Patent Issued For Every 39 Snohomish Residents In 2015
2015 (20)
- December (5)
- November (1)
  - Some Considerations For National Stage Entry In Foreign Jurisdictions
- October (1)
  - Expedited Appeals
- September (1)
  - Hello Everett
- August (1)
  - How To Get Prioritized Examination of an International Application Entering the US National Stage
- June (1)
  - Continuing Patent Applications
- May (2)
  - Fast Route to a Patent (Part II) or, A Utility Patent Issues In Only Five Months
  - Can patents be kept a secret?
- April (1)
  - Leadership Changes at the USPTO
- March (2)
  - Cost Of Foreign Patent Filings To Be Further Reduced
  - 9 Million Patents
- February (3)
- January (2)
  - Supreme Court Alters Standard of Review for Patent Appeals
  - 2014 Washington City and State Patent Issuance Statistics
2014 (10)
- December (3)
- October (1)
  - Restriction Requirements
- September (1)
  - Track One Prioritized Examination for Utility Patents
- August (1)
  - Fast Route to a Patent
- July (1)
  - Design Patents
- June (2)
  - USPTO Issues Guidance to Examiners Following Alice v. CLS
  - Alice v. CLS Decided by Supreme Court
- January (1)
  - Gross Income Limit for Micro Entity Qualification Changed for 2014
2013 (4)
- October (1)
  - Business As Usual at the USPTO, For Now
- March (3)
2012 (21)
- October (1)
  - USPTO Fee Increase, October 5 2012
- September (1)
  - Continuing Implementation of America Invents Act
- August (1)
  - Timeframe for Final Office Action Response
- July (2)
  - Progress on a Unified European Patent
  - New USPTO Satellite Office Locations Announced
- June (2)
  - Final Office Actions
  - Provisional Applications for a Patent and Their Cost
- May (3)
- March (4)
- February (1)
  - Anticipation
- January (6)
2011 (28)
- December (2)
  - Happy Holidays!
  - Commissioner for Patents Leaving the USPTO
- November (1)
  - Secret Prior Art
- October (2)
  - Continuing Applications
  - Lunch with Judge Rader
- September (2)
  - One Immediate "Patent Reform": A Patent Office Fee Increase
  - Patent Reform Bill Heads to The White House
- August (2)
  - Obviousness Rejections Must Include References From Analogous Arts
  - Process for Prosecuting Patents Overseas
- July (1)
  - Patents Outside the United States
- June (4)
- May (1)
  - Innovation Fund
- April (2)
  - Updates
  - America Invents Act of 2011 Introduced in the House
- March (8)
- February (3)

Puget Patent, Seattle Patent Attorney

Personalized and Attentive Service