[Patentpractice] Feedback document mis-placing comments

[David Boundy]

My word processor doesn't emit DOCX at all.  Not even unreliable DOCX.  No
DOCX at all.  I have figured out a fairly painless "malicious compliance"
approach, which I will send to individuals that ask for it.

Part of the solution is the Transmittal Letter: I state "The auxiliary PDF
is incorporated by reference" (like Rick, I use transmittal letters.  There
are several things you can do on a Transmittal Letter that you can't do in
an ADS, among them, a Certificate of Transmission, incorporating all
parents by reference, various statements about PCT Article 19 and 34
Amendments, and the like.)

An  issue I am concerned with is compliance with rule 121, substitute
> specification, in this situation, given Patent Center's filing
> constraints.  By rule, the markup is the de jure substitute spec. The clean
> copy is for the convenience of the examiner. That is what the rule
> states, right?.  So how do you describe, and which form of file, is a
> best practice, for complying with the rules for the substitute
> specification and marked up copy, within the constraints of Patent Center
> submissions?
>

If the formatting is messed up, the Notice of NonCompliant Application
papers will excuse the markup version.  So be sure to mess up the
formatting in a way that will trigger that kind of Notice -- single space,
no page numbers, or something like that.

I will update my Transmittal Letter with the raspberries Rick suggests.
The Microsoft Word Extensions doc that Rick notes is at at
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/openspecs/office_standards/ms-docx/b839fe1f-e1ca-4fa6-8c26-5954d0abbccd

I also included this note in the Transmittal Letter
> "The applicant notes that the USPTO server may revise and replace DOCX
> files the applicant uploads, with revised files, prior to entering them
> into the official file for this application.
> The applicant notes that the USPTO has not specified exactly how the USPTO
> server does this, and does not always clearly specify what those changes
> are."
>
> In my response, at the end, I included this DOCX centric statement:
>
> " While the USPTO relies upon DOCX submission for the specification, there
> are in fact over 40 different versions of the "DOCX" specifications, and
> these file format specifications are generated and controlled by the
> Microsoft Corporation. See the publicly available specifications at
> "[MS-DOCX]: Word Extensions to the Office Open XML (.docx) File Format."
> Therefore, what the USPTO displays, or what the USPTO examiner interprets
> a specification to contain, based upon a document submitted having a DOCX
> file extension, may differ from what the applicant submits. Accordingly the
> examiner is encouraged to review the originally submitted specification,
> which was submitted in pdf format, and therefore is definite and reliable
> as to what the applicant's application, as originally filed, discloses,
> when the examiner examines this application."
>
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