[Patentpractice] reliable way to compare SHA-512 strings from Patent Center?

[Carl Oppedahl]

Thank you for posting.  Yes this USPTO "message digest" is not an easy 
thing to make sense of.  See the following blog articles:

  * Understanding “message digests”
    <https://blog.oppedahl.com/understanding-message-digests/> dated
    July 29, 2020
  * How to calculate SHA-512 hashes in Microsoft Windows
    <https://blog.oppedahl.com/how-to-calculate-sha-512-hashes-in-microsoft-windows/>
    dated March 25, 2022
  * Patent Center Ack Receipt from USPTO does not tell the truth about
    what I e-filed
    <https://blog.oppedahl.com/patent-center-ack-receipt-from-uspto-does-not-tell-the-truth-about-what-i-e-filed/>
    dated November 8, 2024

If these articles do not answer your questions fully, please let me know.

Oh and FWIW, my go-to SHA-512 tool these days is DigitalVolcano Hash 
Tool <https://www.digitalvolcano.co.uk/hash.html> version 1.2.  I'd 
guess this is the same tool you were using.

Carl


On 12/13/2024 12:56 AM, William Ahmed via Patentpractice wrote:
> Dear List,
>
> BACKGROUND (The Old Days -- EFS Web)
>
> Until 2023, we always submitted filings via EFS web. EFS web provided 
> the BYTE COUNT upon filing.
>
> This was great and important.
>
> If 3 years later, when filing the figures for a continuation 
> application, I wanted to make 100% sure that I was re-filing the 
> /exact same pdf file /(instead of another version with the same 
> file-name),
> I would check the byte count (usually using an MS-DOS window - yeah, I 
> am over 50 years old) to make sure.
>
>
> PATENT CENTER (I need the same functionality that I used to have)
>
> Now we live in the world of SHA-512 - Patent Center gives SHA-512 
> rather than bye count.
> I want to do the same for Patent center - I want the ability to take a 
> pdf file on my computer (e.g. 11 months after filing a US 
> provisional), run it through SHA-512 and reproduce the SAME SHA-512 
> string.
>
> I am embarrassed to say that I TRIED and I  FAILED
>
> In Jan 2024, a US provisional was filed -- the drawings file 
> (USProvfiguresJan2024.pdf had a SHA-512 value of "abcdefg".
> I now downloaded and installed a free "Digital Volcano Hash tool" -- I 
> gave it USProvfiguresJan2024.pdf and asked for the
> SHA-512 string.
> The 'SHA-512' hash strings did NOT match.
>
>
> What am I doing wrong?
>
> Thanks,
> Bill
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