The EFS system will likely have no affect on the validity of issued patents. In fact, I suspect that EFS will be adopted very slowly (if at all) by most patent practitioners. Why? It actually makes the filing of patent applications more difficult: you generally have to cut-and-paste sections of the already-drafted patent application from your word processor to the USPTO's PASAT "authoring program," which is essentially a set of kludgey, counterintuitive XML/MSWord tools. Also, it is not clear exactly when the submitted file is considered "filed" (this can be very important).
In addition, any application over 10MB (including TIFF drawings) must be mailed to the USPTO via snailmail anyway.
The EFS will be used primarily where it must be used, e.g., for voluntary publication and republication of patent applications 18 months after filing.
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The EFS system will likely have no affect on the validity of issued patents. In fact, I suspect that EFS will be adopted very slowly (if at all) by most patent practitioners. Why? It actually makes the filing of patent applications more difficult: you generally have to cut-and-paste sections of the already-drafted patent application from your word processor to the USPTO's PASAT "authoring program," which is essentially a set of kludgey, counterintuitive XML/MSWord tools. Also, it is not clear exactly when the submitted file is considered "filed" (this can be very important). In addition, any application over 10MB (including TIFF drawings) must be mailed to the USPTO via snailmail anyway. The EFS will be used primarily where it must be used, e.g., for voluntary publication and republication of patent applications 18 months after filing.
CRY YUMA!
My favorite from the takes-Gonads++to-file-this trademark file is this one (now, alas, abandoned):
= demsi8.2.14
http://tess.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state
which attempts to register the "microsoft" mark for, among other things, adult diapers.