As of 10 a.m. ET today, we project more than 2,200 USPTO employees remain offline due to the faulty CrowdStrike code.
*FOR VIRTUAL APPOINTMENTS: Employees should be at your workstation at least 30 minutes before your appointment starts and be available for at least four hours from your appointment time.
Ex. For an 11 a.m. appointment, you should be at your workstation at 10:30 a.m. and plan to be available until 3 p.m.
You must be at your workstation ready to fix your computer when the technician calls. This will allow us to finish remediating all issues. The call from your technician will come from a number you don’t recognize (likely starting with area code 571). Be sure to answer and confirm the legitimacy of the call by asking the technician to provide your Workstation ID (please see more scam caution guidance below).
Remaining affected employees now have three options for resolution:
- If you are near the Alexandria, VA area, you need to visit HQ to receive onsite assistance. Book an appointment today or walk in: USPTO Onsite Repair booking site
- The USPTO will pay travel time and expenses for TEAP employees whose primary alternate worksite is between 50 and 150 miles of the Alexandria campus to travel no more than 150 miles to campus via their personally owned vehicles (POV) through Thursday, July 25. Please email ITOutageRepairTravelAuthorization@uspto.gov and copy your direct supervisor if you are interested in this option to receive a blanket travel authorization before you drive to Alexandria.
- Employees are encouraged to bring their computer fully charged and have the power supply and power cable with them.
- If you are within 50 miles of the Dallas, Denver, or San Jose regional outreach offices, you can now choose to visit the closest office to receive onsite assistance in lieu of virtual assistance. Walk-ins are being accepted between 9:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. local time. Note: This option is not available for the Detroit regional outreach office due to staff limitations.
- For those further afield from Alexandria HQ and regional outreach offices, you need to schedule a virtual appointment as soon as possible: TEAP Virtual Repair booking site
- Again, please stay close to your phone 30 minutes before your appointment starts and for a four-hour window of your designated appointment.
All remaining impacted employees should now have a plan for resolving the issue. Please refer to the CrowdStrike IT outage: FAQs for impacted employees webpage.
Other IT issues
If you are a Patents employee and are having trouble accessing patent-related applications, such as DAV, OC, and Search, please contact PASM. Personnel from the Patents IT support team will assist you.
If you have resolved the blue screen issue and are having connectivity problems, or problems related to hardware such as mouses and keyboards, please email servicedesk@uspto.gov. Our IT support teams are monitoring the inbox and available to assist you.
Scam caution
- Upon joining a virtual appointment, or receiving a call back, request that the technician confirm your workstation ID before proceeding with the call. Note, if the technician is unable to accurately repeat your workstation ID without your assistance (i.e. they ask you to confirm it) please end the call.
- Our IT technicians will never ask for payment information.
- Employees are not required to be on video for the call, though some IT personnel may ask to use video calling, such as FaceTime, so they can view your screen as they walk through instructions.
Employees unable to travel to headquarters due to sickness, dependent or childcare obligations, travel, or who are requesting any other accommodation, should schedule a virtual appointment and notify their supervisor.
More information about scheduling appointments
For detailed information about scheduling in-person appointments for Alexandria vicinity employees and virtual appointments for TEAP employees, please see the FAQs.
Timekeeping guidance
Guidance on accounting for time was shared via USPTO Broadcast on Monday, July 22. Supervisors and managers are being instructed to be flexible in approving outage time to limit negative impacts to employees.
Depending on an employees’ regular work schedule, employees will be compensated with non-production time for any days or hours that they would have normally been working. This includes the time that their computers were offline, and time spent working with or waiting for an appointment with an IT technician.
Specifics about timecodes and further guidance will be shared directly from the employees’ business unit leadership. Employees should work with their supervisors to determine the appropriate accounting for time.
Next update
We will publish our next update tomorrow to the System 411 page.