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<p>Thank you for posting. This turns out to be a repeat of the
coding blunder that gave us <a
href="https://patentcenter-tickets.oppedahl.com/#CP9"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://patentcenter-tickets.oppedahl.com/#CP9</a>
more than three years ago. <br>
</p>
<p>It is astonishing that the Patent Center developers would repeat
this blunder, which they first made in April of 2020. Back then,
it took the developers more than six months to fix the mistake.</p>
<p>What's going on, of course, is that the coders failed to actually
look at the EFS-Web code. if they had, they could have copied
over the list of patent offices. Instead of using a list of <i><b>patent
offices</b></i>, the coders were lazy and grabbed some
public-domain list of <i><b>countries</b></i>.</p>
<p>The mistake was the the coders assumed that <i><b>patent offices</b></i>
are the same thing as <i><b>countries</b></i>. Which of course
they are not.</p>
<p>But the astonishing thing is that the realization in 2020 by the
coders that patent offices <i><b>are are not the same thing as </b></i>countries
got lost. One assumes that in a mere three years, there has been
complete staff turnover among the coders. One imagines that
nobody on the USPTO team today in 2023 was even around back in
2020 when the USPTO coders read <a
href="https://blog.oppedahl.com/six-months-after-bug-report-uspto-fixes-priority-claim-to-ep-applications-in-patentcenter/">my
blog article</a> and realized that patent offices <i><b>are are
not the same thing as </b></i>countries.</p>
<p>Actually the blunder is worse than what I just described. The
coders actually grabbed some public-domain list of <i><b>places
where you can send mail. </b></i>So it includes lots of
places that are not even countries, but are mere protectorates or
territories of other countries.<br>
</p>
<p>The magnitude of this blunder by the USPTO developers is almost
without limit. The drop-down list includes, for example, Wallis
and Fortuna, which does not have a patent office. The drop-down
list includes the Aland Islands, which does not have a patent
office. The drop-down list includes the French Southern
Territories, which does not have a patent office. The drop-down
list includes the Holy See (the Vatican), which does not have a
patent office.</p>
<p>But of course the drop-down list is missing one of the biggest
patent offices in the world, the European Patent Office. And it
is missing ARIPO and OAPI and the Eurasian Patent Office.</p>
<p>Irving, what is the EBC ticket number for this?<br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 12/30/2023 6:45 AM, Irving Fishman
via Patentcenter wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
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<p class="MsoNormal">In trying to file a third party submission
the blocks to fill in by drop down menus include a “citation
type” which gives you specific selection only, one of which is
“foreign patent document”. On selecting this, the next screen
gives you a required drop down of “Country code” however, the
list does (as of December 19, 2023) not include any of the
regional offices (EPO, ARIPO, or OAPI, etc). EBC only advised
that they could “escalate the question” and were no immediate
help even after advising that I was close to the deadline for
filing the particular third party submission. A supervisor
merely shunted me over to Application Assistance Unit. At
least there, people were sympathetic and went through the
various screens and confirmed I was right, there was no
applicable country code (a required field) for WO or EPO or
other regional patent document, but that there was nothing
they could do. I finally gambled and listed the WO document
under “non-patent literature” and in the citation gave a
statement as to why I listed the document there.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Two days later I spoke to Examiner Tamai
who issues the notices of whether the submission is or is not
compliant and he advised that he would not issue a
“non-compliant” notice under the circumstances described.
This morning (12/30/2023) I went back into the system and it
still does not have any listing under country codes for WO or
EPO or other regional office patent documents, but there is a
listing for “stateless” and a listing for “not provided”,
which are really not applicable. You would think that in the
first instance, the regional offices would be in the list and
that if they could add “stateless” and “not provided” they
could specifically added WO, EPO, and the other regional
offices.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">So when in doubt, stich your reference
citation into the non-patent literature group and explain.</p>
</div>
</blockquote>
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