USPTO to add surcharge on non-DOCX patent applications in 2023

Post by apocalyptic0n3 » Fri, Aug 26, 2022, 5:27 PM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #8

nazgulsenpai wrote: post #7

I was wondering why docx format would be chosen instead of PDF but they answer it pretty completely here if anyone else is interested: https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx

It looks like most of those translate to "We build our automated systems around DOCX so you get all our features if you use it". But it doesn't really say why they chose to build on docx.

Post by meragrin_ » Fri, Aug 26, 2022, 5:34 PM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #8

nazgulsenpai wrote: post #7

I was wondering why docx format would be chosen instead of PDF but they answer it pretty completely here if anyone else is interested: https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx

It looks like most of those translate to "We build our automated systems around DOCX so you get all our features if you use it". But it doesn't really say why they chose to build on docx.

Post by jedberg » Fri, Aug 26, 2022, 5:36 PM UTC

meragrin_ wrote: post #13

jedberg wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks like most of those translate to "We build our automated systems around DOCX so you get all our features if you use it". But it doesn't really say why they chose to build on docx.

I guess you have little exposure to the industry. My experience is the vast majority already use Word or something else which supports DOCX. I cannot think of another format which practitioners have easy access to and would use. PDF just needs to go away for this process.

Post by jedberg » Fri, Aug 26, 2022, 5:37 PM UTC

apocalyptic0n3 wrote: post #11

jedberg wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks like most of those translate to "We build our automated systems around DOCX so you get all our features if you use it". But it doesn't really say why they chose to build on docx.

> But it doesn't really say why they chose to build on docx. Having worked directly with their teams in the past (although not on this), a lot of their systems seemed to evolve naturally over time based on the needs present. In that industry, a large majority of the documents being passed back and forth are DOCX. So my semi-educated guess is someone built a system to handle some simple intake tasks for DOCX applicati…

Post by molsongolden » Fri, Aug 26, 2022, 5:54 PM UTC

dataflow wrote: post #14

jedberg wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks like most of those translate to "We build our automated systems around DOCX so you get all our features if you use it". But it doesn't really say why they chose to build on docx.

It actually seems like a sane choice to me. PDF is good for rendering, but horrible for parsing. DOCX is a ZIP file with XML data. Maybe ODT or whatever would've been a better choice, I don't know what the format is like. But if you disregard the usual knee-jerk "but it's Microsoft!" reaction, it doesn't seem like a bad choice.