About a month ago I had just got home and was in the kitchen talking to Megan when my mobile phone rang. It was an inventor (I’ll call him “Jack”) calling from Los Angeles in California. Jack wanted to extend his US patent application coverage to Australia.
He said, “Hi Michael, I’ve got a patent application filed with the USPTO and I want to lodge in Australia. What’s the deal for doing that?”.
It was a great surprise to hear his US accent coming over the line. Usually when I do work for clients in the USA, or other countries, it comes in as an email from their attorney. Not as a direct phone call from the applicant / inventor. My mobile phone number is on the contact page of my website so people can do exactly what Jack had done and simply give me a call.
I explained the process to Jack for filing his patent application in Australia including the time limits for doing so claiming priority from his US application. I checked with him about a number of issues to make sure that he was all clear to go ahead in Australia. Everything checked out fine.
“OK”, Jack said, “that all sounds goods”. He made a credit card payment through the payment page of my website that evening and the next morning I lodged his application with IP Australia.