Red Book Conditions as of 2000 April 04

Current DTD version: 1.9, 2000 March 07

Current Specification version: 1.9/0, 2000 April 4

Resolved conditions

1.      A build number identifying the version number of the software used to generate the issue is now inserted as a value of the STATUS attribute of the PATDOC element. The Build number is generated by the data-capture contractor and is independent of DTD version.

2.      The claim number now remains in the content and the claim ID attribute is generated automatically in sequence.

3.      The reissue-code stray tag processing problem has been resolved.

4.      The bug in Red Book generation causing unnecessary PDAT tags has been resolved.

5.      The number of color drawings (B595US) is now being initialized.

6.      Claim steps, paragraphs, and header attributes are now being delimited (embedded within double quotes).

7.      Characters required for patent documents that do not appear in any of the standard character sets referenced in the DTD are contained in the USPTO.ENT file.  Glyphs are now available for these characters, distributed as TIFF files within the ENTITIES directory of the distributed media.

8.      Within the MathML content, XML empty tags are being modified to conform to the required SGML syntax.

9.      Image size (WI (width) and HE (height) attributes of the EMI element) are no longer being initialized. This information is available within the header of the TIFF file.

10.  In-line mathematical expressions are now tagged as math complex work units.

11.  Related application structure in Red Book is now detailed within the FAQ URL.

12.  The exemplary drawing is now included within the SDODR element identified with sequence number of all zeroes, as in US06037034-20000314-D00000.TIF.

13.  Utility SIR patent numbers were incorrect and consequently modified to be 8 characters in length consisting of a constant "H" followed by a 7-digit number, right justified, with leading zeroes.

14.  Terminal disclaimer information is now being passed on to Red Book.

15.  Reissue patents now contain B640 record(s) (Earlier document of which the present document is a reissue).

16.  Multiple exemplary claims are now tagged separately within B578US.

17.  The B582US tag is now being used for unstructured US classifications.

18.  Red Book now accurately tracks paragraph types.

19.  Empty B130 element has been resolved.

20.  Term extension information under 35 USC 154 is captured and retained by the data-capture contractor, and now included in Red Book.

21.  Reissue processing was modified to eliminate insert and delete tags spanning claims.

22.  Performance changes implemented in late 1999 introduced a problem with un-bolding numeric data, which has been corrected.

23.  The IPC Edition data element B516 disagreed with the corresponding printed documents. This problem existed in the first issue of 2000 and has been corrected in subsequent issues.

Unresolved Conditions

Conditions requiring action by data-capture contractor

1.      Sequence Listings (DNA) are currently tagged as tables rather than as SEQ-LST complex work unit. DTD modifications have been proposed to support both old and new formats, and conversion to the non-table formats is in progress.

2.      Embedded diacritical characters are sometimes terminated out of sequence which requires manual intervention by data-capture contractor at Red Book generation.

3.      The Mathematica process, from which math complex work units are derived, introduces Unicode hexadecimal special character references which are unresolved. These special characters are being addresses as encountered and the frequency has been reduced substantially.

4.      Procedures to allow special character embedded within mathematical structures have been defined, and required changes to Mathematica should be available in late April 2000.

5.      Original (deleted) and add (inserted) text in reissue patents does not yet have correct revision dates associated with it.  Currently, dates are set to “0000-00-00.”

6.      Slashes still exist between the series code and the application number within some DNUM elements.

7.      Design Patents sometime appear as "D. 99999", "D0099999", or "Des. 99999".

8.      Reissue of a reissue markup needs to be verified.

9.      Element B122US is not being initialized.

10.  Element B540 (title of the invention) contains improper highlighting.

11.  A schedule for Red Book backlog processing has been established.

Conditions requiring action by USPTO

1.      While drawing pages are captured, individual figures are not captured or identifiable as such.  Requires contract modification.

Pending Red Book DTD Modifications

1.      Change content model for CLMSTEP from (PTEXT | PARA)+ to (PTEXT)+.  Claim steps cannot be styled the same as paragraphs.

2.      Change content model for B700 from (B720,B730?,B740?,B745) to (B720,B730*,B740?,B745).  A document may have more than one assignee.

3.      Add element for block pullouts.  A block pullout is a large area on a source page that is captured as an image rather than as text.  Block pullouts may be as large as a page.  Character pullouts (characters for which there is no glyph in any of the included character sets) are currently tagged as CUSTOM-CHARACTER.

4.      Change the PTEXT content model from (B830 | CIT | CLREF | CRF | CWU | DFREF | DNUM | FGREF | FOO | FOR | HIL | IMG | LST | LSTREF | PAREF | PDAT | SEQREF | TBLREF) to (PDAT | B830 | CIT | CLREF | CRF | CWU | DFREF | DNUM | FGREF | FOO | FOR | HIL | IMG | LST | LSTREF | PAREF | SEQREF | TBLREF).  Moving PDAT to the start of the list is required for XML compatibility.

5.      Replace every occurrence of INS-S, INS-E, DEL-S, DEL-E, all defined as EMPTY, with INSERT and DELETE, both defined as (#PCDATA).   This change is required to avoid introducing duplicate or orphaned tags where an insertion or deletion range spans elements.

6.      Add elements for numbering individual figures as well as the drawing pages on which they are presented.  This change will support hypertext links between references to figures and individual figures.

7.      Change content model for B540 (title), H (headers), and CLM (claims) to allow complex work units.  These elements are found to contain complex work units.

8.      Sequence Listing DTD changes to support both the old and new sequence listing formats are in progress.

9.      Add exemplary drawing element.

Pending Red Book Specification Modifications

1.      Modify specification to allow for high resolution half tone and color images.  This includes allowing 400dpi resolution and LZW compression (currently 300dpi and CCITT G4 only).

2.      Add markup instructions for Statutory Invention Registration patent numbers, H, HD, and HP (utility, design, and plant, respectively).

Planned Modifications to Red Book

1.      An XML-based markup language for chemical structures has been published by W3C, called CML (chemical markup language).  When ChemDraw is capable of generating CML output, it will be included in document instances.

2.      Red Book will be modified to full compliance with XML.