deadline date question - US and PCT

[Jesse]

I filed a provisional application at USPTO on Dec 16, 2005. This year
Dec 16 falls on a Saturday. Under both US and PCT rules, to claim
priority do I have until the next Monday, Dec 18, to file my regular
applications?

And (worse case scenario), is that until 11:59PM (at the US Post
Office, Express Mail ...) on the 18th?

If the 18th is the deadline, do I still enter the 16th as the filing
date so that there is no confusion about having made the 1 year
deadline? Will USPTO stamp it as the 16th? TIA. - Jesse

PS: Yes, I DO appreciate that such things should not be left until
the actual last minute.

[David Kiewit]

Post by Jesse
I filed a provisional application at USPTO on Dec 16, 2005. This year
Dec 16 falls on a Saturday. Under both US and PCT rules, to claim
priority do I have until the next Monday, Dec 18, to file my regular
applications?

There's another wrinkle to consider. If you're going to file the PCT case
and use the USPTO as the International Searching Authority, you'll find
there's a reduction in the PCT fees (faily hefty. On the order of $700) if
you have an earlier filed regular US application.

In order to take advantage of that, you have to file the US application
enough ahead of the PCT one that you have the application serial number for
the US filing. An express mail filing of the US case on December1 might (or
might not) get a return post card back to you in time for the PCT filing.
E-filing the US case would certainly get you the number quicker, but if you
don't have a customer number already, you'd have to find someone who has one
to do it for you. Before e-filing, another popular approach was to find
someone in the DC area to do a 'walk-up window' filing for you.

Another wrinkle --If you're committed to a PCT filing, the US one can be
deferred. You can file the US one later as a continuation of the PCT one, or
as a national stage application from the PCT one. This has some
ramifications when it comes to guessing how long it will take for the US
examination to begin.

[PatentBoy]

Post by Jesse
I filed a provisional application at USPTO on Dec 16, 2005. This year
Dec 16 falls on a Saturday. Under both US and PCT rules, to claim
priority do I have until the next Monday, Dec 18, to file my regular
applications?
And (worse case scenario), is that until 11:59PM (at the US Post
Office, Express Mail ...) on the 18th?
If the 18th is the deadline, do I still enter the 16th as the filing
date so that there is no confusion about having made the 1 year
deadline? Will USPTO stamp it as the 16th? TIA. - Jesse
PS: Yes, I DO appreciate that such things should not be left until
the actual last minute.

Priority regarding a PCT application is governed by the Paris
Convention, so according to Article 4 C (3) of the Paris Convention you
have until the next working day.

If the USPTO stamp it 18th, it should have no effect whatsoever. I
suspect that the USPTO do not have the power to "mis-date" a document.
Any confusion will not be your problem.

Whether you have til 11.59pm is down to US law - and I simply do not
know all the practicalities of US law.

Hoppe this helps.

[Alun L. Palmer]

Post by PatentBoy

Post by Jesse
I filed a provisional application at USPTO on Dec 16, 2005. This year
Dec 16 falls on a Saturday. Under both US and PCT rules, to claim
priority do I have until the next Monday, Dec 18, to file my regular
applications?
And (worse case scenario), is that until 11:59PM (at the US Post
Office, Express Mail ...) on the 18th?
If the 18th is the deadline, do I still enter the 16th as the filing
date so that there is no confusion about having made the 1 year
deadline? Will USPTO stamp it as the 16th? TIA. - Jesse
PS: Yes, I DO appreciate that such things should not be left until
the actual last minute.

Priority regarding a PCT application is governed by the Paris
Convention, so according to Article 4 C (3) of the Paris Convention you
have until the next working day.
If the USPTO stamp it 18th, it should have no effect whatsoever. I
suspect that the USPTO do not have the power to "mis-date" a document.
Any confusion will not be your problem.
Whether you have til 11.59pm is down to US law - and I simply do not
know all the practicalities of US law.
Hoppe this helps.

It depends on how you file it. You do have until 11.59 pm, but it is a
question of what time zone.

If you file papers either in person or electronically, or by fax, you are
stuck with the time at the USPTO, i.e. EST or EDST in the summer. Some
things can't be faxed, and a different list of things can't be filed
online, so be careful about that.

I'm in the local area near the USPTO, so have never filed anything by mail,
and rarely by fax or online. Most of the time it is solely a question of
getting to the customer window before midnight. Don't show up hoping to
copy something before filing it, though, as their photocopier automatically
shuts off at 5pm!

If you do file by mail, which I have never done, nor had a any reason to
do, there is a procedure to get the date of mailing as your filing date,
and then you can even file slightly after midnight Eastern time if you are
in another time zone of the US, .e.g. if you are in Californai you can file
at the post office before midnight Pacific time.

You have to file by Express mail at the post office and get them to hand
stamp it, so you have to find one that stays open late, and you need to
include a certificate of mailing that complies with the PTO rules. Clearly
this doesn't work if you are outside the US. For obvious reasons, I'm not
familiar with this procedure myself, i.e. the all-night post office is
further away than the patent office!

Alun Palmer, US Patent Agent

[Mike Brown]

Post by Alun L. Palmer
You have to file by Express mail at the post office and get them to hand
stamp it, so you have to find one that stays open late, and you need to
include a certificate of mailing that complies with the PTO rules.

There's been an extended discussion of this on an e-mail group I frequent.

You need to be very careful to check with your local postmaster about
this - some post offices will simply refuse to stamp Express Mail with
the current date once the last mail has been dispatched from the office
for the day. Some members have reported that their post offices won't
accept express mail at all after a given time which is much earlier than
midnight, others have been assured that their post offices will stamp
them received whenever you get there.

I'm not really sure, but it might depend on whether your post office is
in a major city, so that the regional sorting center and the post office
are the same, or if (as here in Ithaca, NY) the post office has to
dispatch Express Mail from the downtown substation at 4:00 in the
afternoon to get it to the sorting center in another city miles away.

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