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[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Applying XML to Improve Patent Processes (WAS RE: A standard a
 Thank you, Bruce. In the years since the topics of IP and patents first appeared on this list, yours is the first positive and informed response that enables us to understand what steps are being taken to apply technologies of interest to the list members, and to improve the patent processes across national boundaries. Quite often the responses have been to place all blame on one nation, or to fault the patent process in its most general case by claiming that patents are obsolete and should be done away with. It is good to know that the USPTO is working to improve its performance, and working with the international community to share results and policies. Excellent. Much appreciated. I changed the topic so we can find this one later. :-) len From: Bruce.Cox@U... [mailto:Bruce.Cox@U...] The European Patent Office, the Japan Patent Office, and the World Intellectual Property Organization are working with the USPTO to explore means of reducing redundant efforts -- for example, examine once, assign classifications once, rather than every office doing this over and over when they each get the same application (as they do, tens of thousands of times a year). See http://pcteasy.wipo.int/efiling_standards/EFPage.htm for the mutually agreed markup for patent application structures, one of the first major steps in this direction. The three major offices will all be using this markup for electronic applications and for publications within the next few years (USPTO by 2004 January). It appears now that a thoroughly revised International Patent Classification (IPC) will incorporate many of the distinctive features of the USPC (frequent updates, scope notes, subclass definitions). You can see that this could create further opportunity for reducing redundant work among the industrial property offices without abandoning the value of a classification scheme for patents. Patent applications are sorted on arrival for workload distribution. Clerks, using text searching and their knowledge of the US Patent Classification, assign a classification that will get the application to the right art unit for further processing. Attempts were made to automate this, but automatic classification that improved on what the humans did (~70% success rate, as I recall) was too expensive, I'm told. For this purpose, 70% is good enough. For the final classifications provided by examiners after they have studied the application, it probably isn't possible to achieve good-enough results through automation, or if it is, it would probably again cost too much. I'm not aware of any current projects in this direction among any of the industrial property offices. Claim markup is designed to support claim steps (hierarchy), and there are tags for claim dependency. There are some interesting ideas about how to exploit this. It could help in managing examiners' performance plans and setting fee structures, but no one has suggested how it could be exploited to improve searching. It is, after all, merely logical structure markup, revealing nothing about the technology claimed. But don't loose hope. Just having XML markup is a major improvement over the previous markup that was specific to a piece of 1970's photocomposition hardware used by the printer. Now, at least logical structure and rendering are separated. As the PTO and patent information value-added resellers learn how to exploit the XML, demand for more advanced markup will likely increase. There is a great deal of inertia to overcome not just in the industrial property offices, but throughout the industrial property community, from filers right through consumers of the final information byproducts. Management here fully supports XML on the basis of its potential benefits, but there is little to show for what markup we have introduced so far. When management has some real experience with actual tangible benefits, then I expect things will accelerate. Could take five years or more to get there, in my opinion. One final comment before letting this thread get back on point. The Patent Law Treaty appears to go a long way toward harmonizing policy among patent offices, and, although not yet implemented, seems to be already driving some technical issues here. Bruce B. Cox SA4XMLT USPTO/OCIO/AETS 703-306-2606 
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