When EFS-Web was new, the USPTO tried to be smart about bibliographic (bib) data. USPTO designed Form PTO/SB/14 which was an enormous (one megabyte) PDF form. The user could paste the bib data into the form. This included things such as “who are the inventors” and “what are their residences” and “what is the priority claim” and “what domestic benefit claim is being made to a provisional application”. The form was entitled “Application Data Sheet” (ADS).
This was a lot of work for the user, but USPTO dangled a reward. If the user were to include this ADS in the initial EFS-Web submission, the USPTO would promise to auto-load all of the bib data into Palm. From there it would propagate into PAIR and it would be used in preparing the official Filing Receipt. I will now describe how this reward gradually changed into a hoax. Continue reading “USPTO chips away at auto-loading of bib data into Palm”