On Tuesday, December 22, a major power outage at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office headquarters in Alexandria, VA significantly damaged the Office's electronic systems and required the shutdown of the Office's online and IT systems.  As a result, the Office's filing, searching, and payment systems, systems used by examiners across the country, and fax machines have been unavailable to applicants and practitioners since Tuesday evening.

In an update posted at 5:55 pm ET today on the USPTO Systems Status and Availability webpage, the Office indicated that it was working diligently to assess the operational impact on its systems and to determine how soon they could be safely brought back into service in the coming days.  The Office noted that "teams will continue to work around the clock to restore [the Office's systems] as quickly as possible," but estimated that its systems would be impacted at least through the Christmas holiday on Friday.

Although the Office was advising stakeholders earlier in the day to utilize regular and Express mail (requiring many applicants and practitioners to dust off procedures that had become far less common since the implementation of the Office's EFS-Web), the Office's most recent notice indicates that the shutdown constituted an emergency situation and that the Office would consider each day from Tuesday, December 22, 2015, through Thursday, December 24, 2015, to be a "Federal holiday within the District of Columbia" under 35 U.S.C. § 21 and 37 C.F.R. §§ 1.6, 1.7, 1.9, 2.2(d), 2.195, and 2.196.  As a result, the Office will consider any action or fee due between December 22 and December 24 as timely if the action is taken, or the fee is paid, on the next succeeding business day on which the USPTO is open (see 37 C.F.R. §§ 1.7(a) and 2.196).  Because Friday, December 25 is a Federal holiday, the next succeeding business day would currently be Monday, December 28, 2015 (provided, of course, that the Office can restore its systems by that date).  The Office also noted that it would issue a subsequent notice as needed if its systems are not fully operational by Monday, December 28, 2015.

Updates regarding the status and availability of the Office's systems can be found here, as well as on the Office's Facebook and Twitter accounts.  In addition, Patent Docs will continue to monitor and report on the USPTO systems shutdown through the holiday weekend.