Revised PTOL-85 Issue Fee Transmittal Form The purpose of this notice is to advise the public that form PTOL-85 has been substantially revised so as to be more effective and easier to use. Form PTOL-85 starts out as a three page form. Page 1 is form PTOL-85B, the Issue Fee Transmittal form. This form is labeled "TRANSMIT THIS FORM WITH FEE" in red at the bottom. Form PTOL-85B is used for submitting the issue fee. The PALM data that is printed on this form will be much clearer than before as it is now the first (or top) printed copy. This should ensure that the submitted issue fee is promptly credited to the correct application file. Pages 2 and 3 of PTOL-85 are, respectively, the applicant's copy and the PTO's copy of PTOL-85, the Notice of Allowance and Issue Fee Due form. The applicant's copy is labeled "YOUR COPY" in red at the bottom. The applicant should retain the applicant's copy of form PTOL-85. Form PTOL-85B (i.e., page 1) has also been revised to have the Certificate of Mailing in the upper right corner and to clarify that the Certificate of Mailing is to be used for domestic mailings only. Additionally, the CURRENT CORRESPONDENCE ADDRESS block shall permit write-in corrections for making minor changes in the correspondence address. Alternatively, a change in the correspondence address, or an indication of a "Fee Address" for maintenance fee notifications, may be made by checking the appropriate set of brackets in Block 1 and including the appropriate attachment. Block 3 of the revised form PTOL-85B will be used to indicate assignee data to be printed on the patent, as well as the status of the assignee as: (1) individual, (2) corporation or other private group entity, or (3) government entity. Applicants are being asked to indicate the status of the assignee in order to increase the accuracy of the assignee category codes being entered by the Office into the Patent Full Text Data Base, which can later be extracted and used for statistical purposes. This has become necessary since the assignee's category is not always evident at the point in the publication process when the assignment data is being captured from the PTOL-85B form. The applicant is requested to transmit an extra copy of PTOL-85B when payment of the issue fee is by way of authorization to debit a Deposit Account. February 21,1997 STEPHEN O. KUNIN Deputy Assistant Commissioner for Patent Policy and Projects