The Electronic Availability of the Official Gazette of the
U.S. Patent and Trademark Office - Patents on the USPTO
Web Site with Proposed Enhancements
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is considering
providing the Official Gazette of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office -
Patents (OG - Patents) electronically on the USPTO Web site with
enhanced electronic formats. The information in the OG - Patents is
already electronically available to the public without cost, over the
Internet through the USPTO Web site; however, it is not all accessible
from a single access page. As described below, the proposed enhanced
electronic formats would provide the OG - Patents as a coherent
electronic document with improved search capabilities on the Internet,
without cost, or as a single electronic document through other
electronic media, with a fee. Since implementing these enhancements
would require extensive resources, public comment is requested on the
enhancements described in this notice. The enhancements may not be fully
implemented if public feedback is minimal or negative. The Office also
invites public comments on other capabilities or functionalities that
may assist the public in using the electronic OG.
The paper publication of the OG - Patents
Currently, the paper publication of the OG - Patents is available
from the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office
(GPO), as an annual subscription or as single copies. The current cost
of an annual subscription of the OG - Patents is $2,698 for domestic,
sent nonpriority; $3,115 for domestic, sent first class; and $3,372 for
foreign. The cost of a single issue is $88 for domestic, sent
nonpriority, and $110 for foreign. The OG Notices is the first section
of the OG - Patents and it is also found in the Official Gazette of the
U.S. Patent and Trademark Office - Trademarks. The cost of an annual
subscription of the OG Notices is $125 for domestic, sent nonpriority;
$170 for domestic, sent first class; and $156.25 for foreign. Single
issues of the OG Notices are not available. More detailed information on
the paper publications of the OG - Patents and the OG Notices is
provided on the GPO Web site at http://www.access.gpo.gov/.
A limited version of the OG - Patents is currently available
electronically on the USPTO Web site.
The USPTO currently provides information contained in the OG -
Patents electronically over the Internet through the USPTO Web site. The
full text of the OG Notices, the first section of the OG - Patents, is
provided at http://www.uspto.gov/go/og. The Web site provides weekly
issues of the OG Notices from January 3, 1995 to the current week. The
information in the next several sections of the OG - Patents (containing
reexaminations, reissue patents, patents, defensive publications, and
Statutory Invention Registrations (SIRs) issued weekly), is
electronically available in the USPTO Web Patent Database at
http://www.uspto.gov/go/pats/. The database electronically provides the
bibliographic information, full-text, and full-page images for all of
the patents, reissue patents, defensive publications, and SIRs issued
from January 1, 1976 to the most recent weekly issue date. By performing
the appropriate search, the information in each weekly OG - Patents can
be found in the database. The information in the last two sections of
the OG - Patents "Classification of Patents" and "Geographical Index of
Residence of Inventors", is also available electronically by performing
a Boolean search on the USPTO Web Patent Database for the class/subclass
and the issue date, and by searching for the inventor city, state, or
country and issue date, respectively. Thus, the public has electronic
access to the information contained the OG - Patents without cost,
provided one has Internet access capabilities.
Proposed Enhancements of the Electronic OG - Patents
The USPTO is considering enhancing the functionality of the current
electronic OG - Patents by providing two convenient searchable formats-
a page-composed gazette and a virtual gazette, over the Internet
through the USPTO Web site.
A. The page-composed electronic gazette (OG - Patents PDF)
would be available on the USPTO Web site.
The OG - Patents PDF would provide information in Adobe PDF
format. Each section of the OG - Patents also could be viewed, browsed,
and searched using any Web browser on any computer platform with a
freely-available Adobe Acrobat viewer. The format of the text would
closely approximate the current paper publication, such as providing one
claim and one figure (when a figure exists) for each patent in that
weekly issue.
Similar to the electronic OG Notices, each weekly issue of the OG -
Patents would be available through a main menu in the OG - Patents PDF.
A click of the mouse on a particular issue listed in the main menu would
display the table of contents, which lists all the section titles of
that OG - Patents. The text of each section would be displayed by
clicking the mouse on a particular section title. Hence, the OG -
Patents PDF would provide navigation capabilities, allowing users to
access any specific section of the OG - Patents.
B. The virtual gazette (VOG - Patents) would be available on
the USPTO Web site.
Similar to the current electronic OG Notices, the VOG - Patents would
provide a main menu, listing all the weekly issues of the OG - Patents
available. A click of the mouse on a particular issue would display the
table of contents of that issue of the OG - Patents.
Since the first section of the OG - Patents is the OG Notices, the
VOG - Patents would link to specific pages of the current electronic OG
Notices to display the textual information contained in the OG Notices
section of each issue of the OG - Patents. Thus, users who are familiar
with the current electronic OG Notices would find that the VOG - Patents
has similar functions with enhanced features.
The table of contents also would provide a link to a list of all the
patent numbers and titles in that weekly issue, in descending patent
number order. With another click of the mouse on any particular patent
number and title listed, the bibliographic information, specification,
and claims of that patent would be displayed. The VOG - Patents would
utilize pre-set searches of the presently available Patent Full-Text
Database to display this information. Users would be able to display the
full-page images with one additional mouse click. Thus, this portion of
the VOG - Patents functions similarly to the current USPTO Web Patent
Database.
The VOG - Patents would present the information in a different format
than the paper publication because the USPTO Web Patent Database
provides bibliographic information, full-text, and full images of each
patent while the paper publication provides only one figure and one
claim for most patents. For those who need fast access to particular
sections or documents, the VOG - Patents would provide convenient
browsing and navigation capabilities through each weekly issue of the OG-
Patents.
C. Other Proposed Electronic Media of the OG - Patents in a
single file
For those requiring the entire weekly issue of the OG - Patents, the
USPTO is considering providing a single file containing the entire issue
on CD-ROM or via File Transfer Protocol (FTP) for a fee. The information
would be in a page-composed electronic format, either in Adobe
PostScript or Adobe PDF.
Written Comments
Written comments or questions should be addressed to the attention of
Karin L. Tyson, Senior Legal Advisor, by facsimile at (703) 308-6916, by
e-mail to karin.tyson@uspto.gov, or by mail addressed to: Box Comments -
Patents, Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office,
Washington, D.C. 20231. The USPTO prefers to receive comments via
e-mail. If comments are submitted by mail, the USPTO would prefer that
the comments be submitted in plain text on a DOS-formatted 3 1/2-inch
diskette accompanied by a paper copy. Telephone questions concerning
this notice should be directed to Karin Tyson, by telephone at (703)
306-3159.
To be assured of consideration, written comments must be received on
or before August 31, 2000.
The comments will be available for public inspection at the Office of
Patent Legal Administration, Office of the Deputy Commissioner for
Patent Examination Policy, located at Room 3-C23 of Crystal Plaza 4,
2201 South Clark Place, Arlington, Virginia, 22202, and will be
available through anonymous FTP via the Internet (address: ftp.uspto.gov
or ftp://ftp.uspto.gov/). Since comments will be made available for
public inspection, information that is not desired to be made public,
such as an address or phone number, should not be included in the
comments.
May 24, 2000 DENNIS SHAW
Chief Information Officer