Why is "Holding, Docket" listed as my patent examiner?
If you have filed a patent application on either a business method or some sort of mechanical device in the past few years you may have noticed that your patent examiner changed just a few days before Christmas last year. Your patent application was moved from a real art group with real examiners to an art group that doesn't exist with no examiners. Your examiner was changed from a real person to "Holding, Docket," and your time to expect a first office action has changed from whatever it was to 30 months.
Thirty months is the maximum amount of time that the USPTO's First Office Action Prediction software permits. Since your application is in an imaginary place viewed by an imaginary examiner it might make sense that the USPTO's software doesn't think your examination will be reviewed anytime soon.
You are not alone in your confusion, when I called the USPTO earlier today, the Application Assistance Unit told me that they had received many phone calls asking for patent applications to be transferred to a real examiner. A cursory look at the Patent Examination Data System shows that Holding, Docket currently has over one thousand patent applications to work through. Obviously, handling more cases at one time than a normal examiner handles in a career means that Docket is the employee of the month at the USPTO!
Patent Attorneys are Worried about Holding, Docket because we have seen this before.
One of the differences between patent attorneys and inventors is the number of patent applications that we see - thousands. And we see them over a very long period of time. We have seen managers come and go at the USPTO and we have seen these "ghost" units that never review patent applications.
From 1994 to 2015, the USPTO operated the "Sensitive Application Warning System" (SAWS) which designated certain applications as "sensitive and then never examined them. The USPTO discontinued the program and was met with a class action lawsuit for failing to properly document the program in violation of the Privacy Act. The lawsuit is in discovery as of this post.
Back in 2014 there was an art unit for design patent that had no examiners and inventors had to call the USPTO to ask the application be transferred to a real unit. From Carl Oppendahl's blog:
I phoned up one of the SPEs for art unit 2910. He answered the phone, and we talked a bit. It seems that art unit 2910 is supposed to be a mere temporary resting place for a newly filed application, while somebody figures out which “real” art unit might be the best one to examine the application. I tried to point out that it was not “temporary” at all — that we had patent applications that had been filed months ago or more than a year ago that were languishing in this art unit.
For patent attorneys, the USPTO inventing creative application non-examination procedures is very rare, but nothing new.
Applicants who are listed in imaginery art groups run by imaginary examiners need to reach out to the USPTO
Carl took the right approach to handling this situation in 2014 and it is still the right approach today. If you check your application in the Patent Application Information Retrieval system (PAIR) and find that USPTO employee of the month Holding, Docket is assigned to your case you need to take the following steps:
- Call the USPTO's Application Assistance Unit at 888-786-0101 and create a help ticket. You will need to provide your name, email address and application number.
- The clerks have had so many people call in with this issue they actually have a script that they will read to you as to who you should contact in Art Unit 3600.
- Contact the people designated by the clerk in step 2, you will receive names and phone numbers.
- Follow up in one month with these steps again if your application has still not been moved to a real patent examiner.
It is extremely important for Patent Attorneys and Inventors to be aware of these situations so that we can actively reach out to the USPTO and ensure our applications are examined.
If you need an attorney to assist you with this please contact me, I am happy to help.