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International Trademark Association |
The Year 2000 Issue
Year 2000 ("Y2K") issues involve problems where software may not operate properly or may negatively impact systems the software runs on after December 31, 1999. These problems run the gamut from minor inconvenience to major system failure. An example of the latter would be a POS (point-of-sale) system with electronic cash registers which cannot clear credit cards whose expiration dates are in the year 2000 or later.
As of the date of this page's last modification, Y2K issues have been identified in the following INTA software:
- INTA U.S. Federal Circuits, all versions
No Y2K issues have been identified or are anticipated. - INTA PTO I.D. Manual, all versions
No Y2K issues have been identified or are anticipated . - INTA U.S. Trademark Law, V3.0 and later
No Y2K issues have been identified or are anticipated .INTA U.S. Trademark Law, V2.3
Dates in PTO Form Fill-in Fields: Date handling in PTO forms is now Y2K compliant, with one exception, as noted below:
Valid Dates in PTO Forms: Dates may be entered with two digits years in the form MMDDYY or four digit years as MMDDYYYY. Valid dates are January 1, 1951 or later.
Two-digit years: Years entered as 51-99 will be 20th century: i.e., 121599 will appear as 12/15/1999. Years entered as 00-50 will be 21st century: i.e., 121500 will appear as 12/15/2000.
Exception: February 29, 2000: This date only must be entered explicitely on PTO forms: i.e., 02292000. Entering 022900 will result in an Invalid Date message. Simply re-enter the date as 02292000 and it will appear correctly.
- INTA U.S. Trademark Law, V2.2. (Build 205)
Dates are used in U.S. Trademark Law in three general areas
Date Calculator--no issues identified
Storage of Completed PTO Forms with Datestamp--no issues identified
Dates in PTO Form Fill-in Fields: The PTO forms provided with U.S. Trademark Law contain fields which accept dates, such as filing dates.
How dates are entered: All dates fields provide for entry of four-digit years, such as 2/12/1998 or 4/14/2001. or two-digit years, such as 2/12/98 or 4/14/01.
Y2K issue identified: If a date is entered with a two-digit year, the year is automatically expanded to a four-digit year, which always defaults to the 20th century. If a date is entered as 2/12/98, it will be expanded to 2/12/1998, which is as expected, but a date entered as 4/14/01 will be expanded to 4/14/1901, which is probably not what the user wants.
Workaround: Be sure to enter dates with four-digit years. As part of the ordinary review of forms before filing, check that dates in the 21st century are entered as desired and edit the form if they are not.
Other Issues: No other Y2K issues have been identified thus far
If any other
Y2K issues are identified in the above software,
they will be
posted on this site.
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