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

federalregister.gov

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

#101

Post by turtleyacht »

_ggwa wrote: post #99
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some aspects of patent administration are being assisted by machine learning, which might mean that statistically a few jobs have already been lost, maybe not examiners per se . I gather IPCCAT https://ipcpub.wipo.int/?notion=search&version=20220101&symb... , uses ML - and other offices have similar tools. UKIPO use AI for trademark searches and to streamline applications, eg https://ipo.blog.gov.uk/2020/10/29/introd…

The USPTO uses a lot of automation, but frequently not where they should. Note: I am a current USPTO patent examiner, and this is my opinion, not that of the USPTO or US govt. The USPTO apparently has two contractors to classify patent documents. I've heard that some sort of AI system is used for classification, in combination with a lot of poorly paid contractors. In my experience, the classification is so frequentl…

> wrote my own tool, which I run on my [work] computer

Could you elaborate on this? I'm still on the fence about even having independent dotfiles in a separate repo.

Perhaps it is different because it's governmental work, therefore for the public good?

If I may ask yet another question: if your tools make you more efficient, does that impact perception of other examiners' "KPI metrics?"

Automation is a sensitive topic at the best of times, so just trying to learn some context from different fields. Thank-you.

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

#102

Post by Jcowell »

macinjosh wrote: post #96
ceeplusplus wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Government work is not respectable.

Park conservation work is hella respectable

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

#103

Post by TheCoelacanth »

phendrenad2 wrote: post #82
xvilka wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is open only on paper - at least half of it MSO-specific compatibility cruft, plus real documents often contain binary blobs that aren't described in the standard. Name "open" is a lie in this case. Moreover, it's made in ISO only because of corruption of these standardization bodies. It wasn't even properly reviewed!

Seems to work in LibreOffice, which is open-source just fine.

Due to decades of work reverse engineering the behavior of MS Office (not only after the invention of DOCX, many of the specified behaviors in DOCX reference behaviors of older versions of Office).

It would be a monumental effort to create another implementation and completely impossible without referring to MS Office as a reference implementation.

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

#104

Post by _ggwa »

turtleyacht wrote: post #101
_ggwa wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The USPTO uses a lot of automation, but frequently not where they should. Note: I am a current USPTO patent examiner, and this is my opinion, not that of the USPTO or US govt. The USPTO apparently has two contractors to classify patent documents. I've heard that some sort of AI system is used for classification, in combination with a lot of poorly paid contractors. In my experience, the classification is so frequentl…

> wrote my own tool, which I run on my [work] computer Could you elaborate on this? I'm still on the fence about even having independent dotfiles in a separate repo. Perhaps it is different because it's governmental work, therefore for the public good? If I may ask yet another question: if your tools make you more efficient, does that impact perception of other examiners' "KPI metrics?" Automation is a sensitive topi…

> Could you elaborate on this? I'm still on the fence about even having independent dotfiles in a separate repo.

I'm not quite sure what specifically you want me to elaborate on, but I'll write about how similar my work and personal computers are.

My USPTO computer is almost entirely independent of my personal computer. I run Linux on my personal computer, and the USPTO computer is Windows. The repository for my tool, plint, is on both my USPTO and personal computers. With that being said, I make all the commits to the GitHub repository on my personal computer.

> If I may ask yet another question: if your tools make you more efficient, does that impact perception of other examiners' "KPI metrics?"

plint doesn't seem to have any effect on how I am perceived or how other examiners are perceived. I've told some examiners about plint. Some don't seem to be interested, others like the idea. I don't know of anyone else using plint on a regular basis.

Also, using a tool like this doesn't necessarily make an examiner more efficient in the KPIs that upper management cares about. The most "efficient" approach would be to ignore 112(b) problems unless they are particularly obvious. In fact, I think that's what the incentives encourage: doing the bare minimum and moving on to the next application. However, a tool like this makes quality examination more efficient. I'd like to do as high quality a job as I can given the absurd time restrictions on my work. USPTO upper management gives a lot of lip service to quality, but quality isn't rewarded like "production" is. (Again, all this is my opinion and I don't speak for anyone else.)

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

#105

Post by 0x457 »

moistly wrote: post #75
0x457 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not make yet another XML standard for patents and generate PDFs from it?

Or just use Docbook and the standard, open pipelines for publication to print and web.

I was saying it half-sarcastically because of how many "universal" XML standards are out there and how useless they are.

I wrote DDEX parsers in the past and I wish it never existed...

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

#106

Post by turtleyacht »

_ggwa wrote: post #104
turtleyacht wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> wrote my own tool, which I run on my [work] computer Could you elaborate on this? I'm still on the fence about even having independent dotfiles in a separate repo. Perhaps it is different because it's governmental work, therefore for the public good? If I may ask yet another question: if your tools make you more efficient, does that impact perception of other examiners' "KPI metrics?" Automation is a sensitive topi…

> Could you elaborate on this? I'm still on the fence about even having independent dotfiles in a separate repo. I'm not quite sure what specifically you want me to elaborate on, but I'll write about how similar my work and personal computers are. My USPTO computer is almost entirely independent of my personal computer. I run Linux on my personal computer, and the USPTO computer is Windows. The repository for my tool…

Thank-you for the reply--and for your frankness. Maybe one of the ways to make things better is from the inside, just by being there in this moment versus anytime else, with what we can work with.

Our fair advantage is in the authoring of computing instructions, and that's as good a chance as we may get.

I hope we will both have stories to share a decade hence.

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

#107

Post by exikyut »

sidewndr46 wrote: post #74
jfk13 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So true. "It's XML, so it must easy to parse and manipulate" is such a naive, even misleading attitude. If what you do is take a byzantine, legacy-encrusted implementation and just serialise its data strucures to an XML representation, very little has been gained. [edit: but I will grant that almost anything is better than attempting to parse useful content from PDF.]

I had a CTO who told me that "anytime someone says something will be simple because it uses XML, just repeat what they said and use the word text instead of XML. Then tell me if it sounds smart."

*Uses regular expressions to parse binary XML*

In fairness though this a really good point.

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

#108

Post by exikyut »

meragrin_ wrote: post #41
hedora wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They say that 80% of the submissions used to be converted to PDF from word. I'd be interested to know where the other 20% came from.

There's this one guy I've dealt with. He uses a editor he wrote himself. He'll convert his documents to Pages and then use Pages for any other conversion needed.

Coool. What unique features does it have / how does it work / what does it look like / what were the real-world factors that contributed to the insanity of deciding to build it? xD

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

#109

Post by pbhjpbhj »

_ggwa wrote: post #99
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some aspects of patent administration are being assisted by machine learning, which might mean that statistically a few jobs have already been lost, maybe not examiners per se . I gather IPCCAT https://ipcpub.wipo.int/?notion=search&version=20220101&symb... , uses ML - and other offices have similar tools. UKIPO use AI for trademark searches and to streamline applications, eg https://ipo.blog.gov.uk/2020/10/29/introd…

The USPTO uses a lot of automation, but frequently not where they should. Note: I am a current USPTO patent examiner, and this is my opinion, not that of the USPTO or US govt. The USPTO apparently has two contractors to classify patent documents. I've heard that some sort of AI system is used for classification, in combination with a lot of poorly paid contractors. In my experience, the classification is so frequentl…

Thank you for an enlightening and informative post.
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