[Patentpractice] Paper files

[Randall Svihla]

Hi, Neil

The USPTO already limits you to downloading 100 MB of files from the image file wrapper at one time if you are logged in as a registered user, or 30 MB if you are not logged in.  So if you want to download a file history that is 750 MB, you have to do it in 8 pieces under the 100 MB limit.  Fun times.

Randall S. Svihla
NSIP Law
Washington, D.C.


-----Original Message-----
From: Patentpractice <patentpractice-bounces at oppedahl-lists.com> On Behalf Of Neil R. Ormos via Patentpractice
Sent: Wednesday, May 22, 2024 2:26 PM
To: Patent Practice Mailing List <patentpractice at oppedahl-lists.com>
Cc: Neil R. Ormos <ormos-lists at ormos.org>
Subject: Re: [Patentpractice] Paper files

David Boundy wrote:

> [...] If I have electronic (or the patent office
> has electronic file wrapper) is there any reason
> to keep paper?  Obviously if there's
> correspondence between me and the client that
> isn't in the file wrapper and it could
> conceivably be helpful to my client, that paper
> I have to keep.  But that leaves an awful lot of
> paper for which, it seems to me, I can rely on
> the PTO's electronic files, and throw it out.

I read this as presenting several questions.

============

1.  Can the PTO be relied on to maintain electronic file
    wrappers and make them available?

2.  Can one's own electronic file wrappers be relied on, and
    are they any worse than paper?

That question can be decomposed a bit:

  a.  How much do you trust your own (or your firm's)
      process of acquiring and organizing the content?

  a.1 Do you have a mechanism to discover and correct latent
      defects, such as broken files, misplaced and misnamed
      documents, missing pages, document size errors (e.g.,
      a legal paper scanned at letter size), conversion
      errors (e.g., a color document saved as 1-bit),
      ephemeral formats, and the like?

  a.2 If you have such a mechanism, and there are manual
      steps, who performs them?

  b.  How good are you (or your firm) at keeping electronic
      files for, say, 30 years?

3.  Who are you trying to satisfy? That is, by whom (e.g.,
    client, ex-client, insurance carrier, OED or other
    attorney/practitioner regulator, jury), and at what
    standard of performance (e.g., engagement-letter
    promises or disclaimers, rational basis, commercially
    reasonable, Star Chamber strict liability) will you be
    judged?

============

I don't have answers to the other questions, but as to the question about relying on the PTO, in view of the:

    * EFS-Web/PAIR-to-Patent-Center transition;
    * DOCX rule implementation;
    * EPAS-to-Assignment-Center transition;
    * new search systems on both the patent and trademark sides;
    * several instances of data leakage; and
    * the profound, general hostility of the agency to
      practitioners and applicants;

I am skeptical that we-all can rely on the PTO's electronic files being complete and accurate in the coming years.  "New Way Of Working" is all about cheaper and faster, and does not appear to encompass such end-customer-driven requirements as completeness and accuracy.

Moreover, I am also skeptical that the PTO will continue to make file wrappers conveniently available in a useful form--that is, with individual file wrappers downloadable in their entireties.  I will be surprised if we do not see arbitrary restrictions on the download of file wrappers--say, a limit of 75 pages downloaded per 24 hours--justified by some pretextual allusion to security, system load, or user "evasion" of a fee-based data access or file wrapper delivery service (coming soon to a fee schedule or "storefront" near you).

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