USPTO to add surcharge on non-DOCX patent applications in 2023 • Hacker News Board

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

#51

Post by notriddle » Fri, Aug 26, 2022, 9:19 PM UTC

ndiddy wrote: post #29

dataflow wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The Office Open XML file format is extremely complex, and takes up around 6,500 pages (compared to ~1000 for ODF). One thing you notice when reading the DOCX spec is that they designed it with the sole constraint that DOC files could easily be converted to DOCX. For example, you'll frequently see compatibility tags like "autoSpaceLikeWord95", "footnoteLayoutLikeWW8", "useWord2002TableStyleRules", and "lineWrapLikeWor…

> "autoSpaceLikeWord95", "footnoteLayoutLikeWW8", "useWord2002TableStyleRules", and "lineWrapLikeWord6"

I expect that whatever tooling the USPTO uses can probably just ignore those things. They're extracting metadata, not actually rendering it.

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

#52

Post by deathanatos » Fri, Aug 26, 2022, 9:27 PM UTC

> Due to aggressive automated scraping of FederalRegister.gov and eCFR.gov, programmatic access to these sites is limited to access to our extensive developer APIs.

Apparently. Then a captcha and a button to request access, which if you complete, returns a 500 Internal Server Error.

… my tax dollars are hard at work, I see.

The Wayback Machine hasn't got a snapshot, either, it seems.

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

#53

Post by not2b » Fri, Aug 26, 2022, 9:30 PM UTC

ndiddy wrote: post #29

dataflow wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The Office Open XML file format is extremely complex, and takes up around 6,500 pages (compared to ~1000 for ODF). One thing you notice when reading the DOCX spec is that they designed it with the sole constraint that DOC files could easily be converted to DOCX. For example, you'll frequently see compatibility tags like "autoSpaceLikeWord95", "footnoteLayoutLikeWW8", "useWord2002TableStyleRules", and "lineWrapLikeWor…

I think they pretty much had to do that to preserve the formatting of existing documents for users who are force-upgraded by their employers to new Office versions. But it seems a scraper that just wants the information in the document can ignore almost all of those tags.

edit: ninja'd.

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

#54

Post by batmaniam » Fri, Aug 26, 2022, 9:46 PM UTC

deathanatos wrote: post #52

> Due to aggressive automated scraping of FederalRegister.gov and eCFR.gov, programmatic access to these sites is limited to access to our extensive developer APIs. Apparently. Then a captcha and a button to request access, which if you complete, returns a 500 Internal Server Error. … my tax dollars are hard at work, I see. The Wayback Machine hasn't got a snapshot, either, it seems.

Seriously, I've had my share of horror stories on government systems. Do they just not dogfood their own product? Where is their QA team? It's atrocious how basic tasks are so broken all the time.

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

#55

Post by zevra » Fri, Aug 26, 2022, 9:53 PM UTC

deathanatos wrote: post #52

> Due to aggressive automated scraping of FederalRegister.gov and eCFR.gov, programmatic access to these sites is limited to access to our extensive developer APIs. Apparently. Then a captcha and a button to request access, which if you complete, returns a 500 Internal Server Error. … my tax dollars are hard at work, I see. The Wayback Machine hasn't got a snapshot, either, it seems.

Its apparently the wrong link see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32609165

The correct one is: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2022/04/28/2022-09...

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

#56

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Aug 26, 2022, 9:58 PM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #15

meragrin_ wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I actually do have a lot of exposure to patents, and I know everyone uses DocX already. I'm just saying that that web page doesn't say why they chose DocX, only why you should use DocX.

[deleted]

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

#57

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Aug 26, 2022, 10:00 PM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #15

meragrin_ wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I actually do have a lot of exposure to patents, and I know everyone uses DocX already. I'm just saying that that web page doesn't say why they chose DocX, only why you should use DocX.

[deleted]

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

#58

Post by ceeplusplus » Fri, Aug 26, 2022, 10:16 PM UTC

batmaniam wrote: post #54

deathanatos wrote: post #52

> Due to aggressive automated scraping of FederalRegister.gov and eCFR.gov, programmatic access to these sites is limited to access to our extensive developer APIs. Apparently. Then a captcha and a button to request access, which if you complete, returns a 500 Internal Server Error. … my tax dollars are hard at work, I see. The Wayback Machine hasn't got a snapshot, either, it seems.

Seriously, I've had my share of horror stories on government systems. Do they just not dogfood their own product? Where is their QA team? It's atrocious how basic tasks are so broken all the time.

Government can't afford to hire the competent talent, only the scraps after everyone else (even the consulting bodyshops) are done. The top GS pay bracket is lower than entry level engineers at many companies (not just FAANG, but also defense, F500 companies, etc.)

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

#59

Post by CobrastanJorji » Fri, Aug 26, 2022, 10:42 PM UTC

ceeplusplus wrote: post #58

batmaniam wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously, I've had my share of horror stories on government systems. Do they just not dogfood their own product? Where is their QA team? It's atrocious how basic tasks are so broken all the time.

Government can't afford to hire the competent talent, only the scraps after everyone else (even the consulting bodyshops) are done. The top GS pay bracket is lower than entry level engineers at many companies (not just FAANG, but also defense, F500 companies, etc.)

One of the many things that I found tempting about working for the U.S. Digital Service was that, while the GS-15 pay grade is definitely way less than I'd make in the private sector, my spouse's family is military/government and the difference between "hippy programming thingy" and "has a GS-15/O-6 job" would've been night and day. The one puts me in a pile of stereotypes, but the other says "oh, he's basically the bureaucratic equivalent of a Captain, that's very respectable."

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

#60

Post by ceeplusplus » Fri, Aug 26, 2022, 10:43 PM UTC

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #59

ceeplusplus wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Government can't afford to hire the competent talent, only the scraps after everyone else (even the consulting bodyshops) are done. The top GS pay bracket is lower than entry level engineers at many companies (not just FAANG, but also defense, F500 companies, etc.)

One of the many things that I found tempting about working for the U.S. Digital Service was that, while the GS-15 pay grade is definitely way less than I'd make in the private sector, my spouse's family is military/government and the difference between "hippy programming thingy" and "has a GS-15/O-6 job" would've been night and day. The one puts me in a pile of stereotypes, but the other says "oh, he's basically the…

Different circles I guess. While my spouse's family considers government jobs to be stable and somewhat respectable, there is a lot more respect for FAANG and other high paying jobs. One is respectable, the other is prestigious.