Patent Grant Authority file layout

Please Note: The Patent Grant Authority file contains all published 
USPTO Patent documents, except for Pre-Grant Publications.

There is a Tab (character) between each field. 

The first field is ten (10) positions.  

     The first two (2) positions contain the "Country Code".

     The next eight (8) positions contain the "Patent Number".
     Note: Some Patent "Numbers" contain capital letters (i.e., capital "A" through "Z" ) 

The second field is two (2) positions and contains the Patent "Kind of Document Code".  
     See the separate list of "Summary of Usage of USPTO Kind of Document Codes".

The third field is one (1) position and is used to identify missing and withdrawn Patents.  

     If the Patent images are available for viewing this field is a blank (character). 

     If the Patent images are missing, this field will have an "M".  
     The USPTO does not have a copy of the missing documents in its collection.

     If the Patent is withdrawn, this field will have a "W".  
     Please note that withdrawn patents will NOT have a Patent "Kind of Document Code".

Example only:
US01234567	A1			(The database contains the Patent images)
US01234567	A1	M		(The Patent images are missing from the database)
US02345678		W		(This is a withdrawn Patent)
USX234567H	A1	 		(This is a "Fractional Patent" described below)

Fraction Patents

"Patent Numbers" for fractional patents will end with the letter representing the fraction
 according to Yellow Book (Image Data File) format

Last Position	      Fraction
A                          1/16
B                           1/8
C                          3/16
D                           1/4	
E                          5/16
F                           3/8	
G                          7/16
H                           1/2
I                          9/16
J                           5/8
K                         11/16
L                           3/4
M                         13/16
N                           7/8
O                         15/16

For example, 
US X234567 1/2 A would be USX234567H  A1
US 2345678 1/4 A would be US2345678D  A1