[Patentpractice] Paper files

[Rick Neifeld]

Hmm. The the PTO will rely upon attorney records if theirs filings in 
case the PTO loses or corrupts records. And you want to rely upon the 
PTO and not keep records?

Best regards, Rick Neifeld, Ph.D., Patent Attorney
Neifeld IP Law PLLC
9112 Shearman Street, Fairfax VA 22032-1479, United States
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On 5/22/2024 2:25 PM, Neil R. Ormos via Patentpractice wrote:
> 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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