I logged into work this morning and I couldn’t get any of the applications to load. Called the help desk, there was a recorded message saying that there was a power outage at main campus and they were working on it. I went to run some errands thinking that it’d be up in a couple of hours. I came back to my desk and found out the following:
A major power outage at USPTO headquarters occurred last night resulting in damaged equipment that required the subsequent shutdown of many of our online and IT systems. This includes our filing, searching, and payment systems, as well as the systems our examiners across the country use. We are working diligently to assess the operational impact on all our systems and to determine how soon they can be safely brought back into service. Status updates will be issued on our systems alert page (www.uspto.gov/blog/ebiz/) as they become available, as well as on our Facebook (www.facebook.com/uspto.gov) and Twitter (www.twitter.com/uspto) accounts.
They don’t expect any of the systems to be back up until after Christmas, the patent office has basically ground to a halt. I think a lot of people at the patent office are working furiously to get everything back on line, but those people don’t include me. I’m officially off until after Christmas. There isn’t even a possibility of working, which is a good thing. No work, no school, no travel, no one extra staying in the house for the holidays. A real break.
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We saw How the Grinch Stole Christmas (the old one). There was no room for me on the couch!
Wahoo! Xmas came early!