[Patentpractice] USPTO taking next step in transition to DOCX

[Carl Oppedahl]

On 12/21/2023 1:29 PM, Tim Ackermann via Patentcenter wrote:
> What if I accidentally filed PDF images of my Abstract, Specification, 
> and Claims as "Figures, other than black & white"? And then amended 
> the drawings to remove those accidental images?

I am migrating this over to the Patent Practice listserv which is the 
right place for it.

The Patentcenter listserv is for bugs and feature requests and 
workarounds relating to Patent Center.

Now to return to the topic.

So what we are talking about is the process of submitting a trusted PDF 
along with the untrusted Microsoft Word file.  The reason for handing in 
the untrusted Microsoft Word file is to avoid having to pay the $400 
penalty.  The reason for handing in the trusted PDF file is, well, 
because it can actually be trusted.

Except not.  The first thing that the USPTO does with your trusted PDF 
is dismember it into TIF images, one per PDF page. And then the USPTO 
carries out halftoning and resizing.  This is the native storage format 
in IFW.  Later if you click to see your trusted PDF, you will find that 
what IFW gives back to you as a PDF is not bit-for-bit the same as the 
PDF that you uploaded.  The PDF that the IFW gives back to you will, 
among other things, have a non-identical message digest (hash).

So yes, it seems to me that the filer who wants to avoid the harm caused 
by the halftoning and resizing would definitely want to index the 
trusted PDF as "non-black-and-white drawings".  That way the PDF is 
preserved bit-for-bit.

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