By Christopher P. Singer —

PAIR Maintenance

The USPTO posted a message on the front page of
PAIR announcing that both Public and Private PAIR will be down for maintenance
for part of this weekend.  The
maintenance is expected to begin at 10:00 pm EST on Saturday, November 14th and last until about 11:00 am EST on Sunday, November 15th.

USPTO Form Usage

In a prior message, the USPTO published an advisory
regarding the use and modification of the patent forms it provides the public
for use in the patenting process.  The Office stated that "[u]se of the forms for purposes for which
they were not designed is prohibited."  In particular, the USPTO expressed a clear message that no
modification can be made to a certification statement that is contained within
a USPTO-provided form (such as declarations, terminal disclaimers, petitions,
and non-publication requests).

While practitioners and applicants are forbidden
from changing the language in a certification statement, they can modify the
other language in a USPTO-provided form, as long as all text identifying
the form as an Office form is removed.  This is an important step when using any modified document because, as
stated in the notice:

The presentation to the
Office (whether by signing, filing, submitting, or later advocating) of any
Office form with text identifying the form as an Office form by a party,
whether a practitioner or non-practitioner, constitutes a certification under
37 CFR 10.18(b) that the existing text and any certification statements on the
form have not been altered other than permitted by EFS-Web customization.  See
37 CFR 1.4(d)(3).

The Office also indicated that it is in the process
of making all existing forms available in a "fillable" format and
that it would update the forms as they become ready for use.  Problems relating to fillable patent
forms can be reported to the electronic business center by e-mail at ebc@uspto.gov.