TIFF and the USPTO

[Caryn.Wesner at USPTO.GOV]

[I had some trouble sending this to the list, and I'm afraid the discussion
has rather left it behind, but I wanted to put in my $.02-worth anyway!]

Julia -

Thanks for a really good explanation of the problems of the USPTO in this
matter!  I'd been trying to figure out how to put it, and you took the words
out of my mouth (and arranged them better than I would have).

I wanted to comment on a couple of points, though.  You said "Any extra
money they get from the government...."  It's not a matter of getting money
from the government - it's a matter of getting the government to let the PTO
keep the money that's theirs by right!  The PTO is supported by fees charged
to patent applicants, and is fully self-supporting.  However, every year,
Congress confiscates millions of dollars from the PTO and applies it to
other agencies!  A lot of the fire that the PTO comes under could be
prevented if it could just keep its own money and use it for hiring
examiners and upgrading processes.

You also said, "It is only with public pressure that money is given to an
agency to improve its services."  That's absolutely right - everyone needs
to pressure their Congresscritters to let the PTO keep its own money, and
improve its services!

Caryn S. Wesner-Early, MSLS
Technical Information Specialist
Biotechnology and Chemical Library
U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
Phone: (703) 308-4501
Fax: (703) 308-4496
caryn.wesner at uspto.gov


Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2001 09:51:00 -0500
From: Julia Schult <jschult at elmira.edu>

I worked in a quasi-USPTO library a couple of years back in Sunnyvale CA
and became more familiar than most people with what the USPTO is up
against.  The main thing they are up against is the sheer volume of
patent applications and patents granted.  Any extra money they get from
the government goes to hiring more patent examiners so they can keep the
backlog of patents from getting even bigger than it is.  The USPTO is in
the business of checking patent applications as thoroughly as possible
(hah! would that it were so) and then approving them.  At one time they
were told they were supposed to support themselves by getting money from
the distribution of the patents, but as a government agency, the
information is supposed to be freely distributed.  So the people who
spend money in Washington don't think they should be giving the PTO any
money to help distribute patents, and besides the main function of the
PTO is to approve the patents, not distribute them.  When IBM started
distributing patents free over the Web, it cut into the PTO's limited
distribution system enough to push the PTO to finally put their
documents out on the Web also.

All of this is to say that while it is easy to say "it wouldn't take
much to convert all their tiffs to gifs" the fact is they put out 2000+
patents per week (yes every single week), and patents range from 3-600+
pages each.  How do you fit that into an underfunded budget when
distributing the patents to the public is not your main function anyway?

That said, we should continue to pressure the government to put the
patents out in a format that is more readily accessible, or someone
(IBM?) should do it for them.  It is only with public pressure that
money is given to an agency to improve its services, and in this case
the money required is not trivial because of the volume involved.

---Julia E. Schult
Access/Electronic Services Librarian
Elmira College
Jschult at elmira.edu