[Patentpractice] venting - failure to download priority document from DAS

[Carl Oppedahl]

Yes.  It's like there is some weird game of chicken going on. Suppose 
WIPO had a price for using DAS, like USPTO having to pay ten dollars to 
retrieve a PD from DAS.  Then in a weird sick way we could understand 
the USPTO deciding to slow-walk the retrieval until after some of the 
events in which the filer might have let the filing go abandoned.  You 
know, like if on average one out of ten US filings go abandoned before 
the filing receipt, then they save ten dollars for that one case.

Except, guess what, WIPO does not charge any money for retrievals.  So 
that explanation for the foot-dragging does not work.

What's really going on, I believe, is that even though it would 
absolutely be the right thing to do, the USPTO software developers have 
not done the bit of coding for this retrieval to be automated.  This is 
coding that a handful of competent coders (drawn from this listserv, for 
example) could do on a weekend, if given pizza and soft drinks, and they 
would have Saturday afternoon and all of Sunday left over.  But no, the 
USPTO has not done it.  So this task remains (even after more than a 
decade of DAS existing) a purely manual task carried out by means of 
fingers moving on keyboards.

And so the reason for the foot-dragging is, the USPTO wanting to save 
the internal labor cost of the fingers on keyboards until after some of 
the events in which the filer might have let the filing go abandoned.  
You know, like if on average one out of ten US filings go abandoned 
before the filing receipt, then they save the fingers-on-keyboards 
internal cost for that one case.

Oh and never mind that if only the USPTO were to incur that one-time 
cost for coding and automating the retrieval, this would save the 
recurring cost of the fingers on keyboards.

And it would serve the paying customers better.

The USPTO's failure in this area seemingly knows no bounds, because it's 
not just the foot-dragging result.

Say you go to ePCT to enter in an application number and DAS access 
code, for the IB to retrieve some PD. /*In real time*/ the ePCT system 
cross-checks the entered application number and DAS code against DAS.  
If the user had gotten a digit wrong, the user is told this /*in real 
time.*/

But in the USPTO systems, the USPTO goes out of its way to avoid doing 
any validation or cross-checking of the PD application number or DAS 
access code.  USPTO could do this when you load your ADS into Patent 
Center.  If USPTO were to do this (which costs no money to do in a 
recurring way, and in fact saves the USPTO money later by averting 
delays and mistakes and do-overs), this would be applicant-friendly.  
But USPTO does not do it.

On 5/16/2024 6:22 AM, Dan Feigelson via Patentpractice wrote:
> Filed an application that claims priority only from a non-US 
> application. Foreign priority app is in DAS (I checked with WIPO). 
> Provided the USPTO with the foreign application no. and the DAS 
> retrieval code on an ADS at the time of filing. Got the filing 
> receipt, and it acknowledges the foreign priority claim and that the 
> DAS code was provided, and says that the USPTO "will attempt to 
> electronically retrieve" the priority doc. But of course, the p.d. 
> isn't yet in the electronic file.
>
> That the PTO waits to retrieve the p.d. is not news, Carl and others 
> have written about it. But it still bugs me: how hard would it be for 
> the PTO to retrieve the document NOW instead of waiting?
>
> Dan
>
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