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There are still a few months to fix this, but for now the US Patent and Trademark Office's (USPTO) Acting Commissioner for Patents, Andrew Faile, and Chief Information Officer, Jamie Holcombe, have announced that starting January 1st, 2022, the USPTO will institute a surcharge for applicants that are not locked into Microsoft products via the proprietary DOCX format. From that date onwards, the USPTO will move away from PDF and require all filers to use that proprietary format or face an arbitrary surcharge when filing.
First, we delayed the effective date for the non-DOCX surcharge fee to January 1, 2022, to provide more time for applicants to transition to this new process, and for the USPTO to continue our outreach efforts and address customer concerns. We've also made office actions available in DOCX and XML formats and further enhanced DOCX features, including accepting DOCX for drawings in addition to the specification, claims, and abstract for certain applications.
One out of several major problems with the plans is that DOCX is a proprietary format. There are several variants of DOCX and each of them are really only supported by a single company's products. Some other products have had progress in beginning to reverse engineering it, but are hindered by the lack of documentation. DOCX is a competitor to the fully-documented, open standard OpenDocument Format, also known as ISO/IEC 26300.
DOCX is not to be confused with OOXML, though it often is. While OOXML, also known as ISO/IEC 29500, is technically standardized, it is incompletely documented and only vaguely related to DOCX. The DOCX format itself is neither fully documented nor standard. So the USPTO is also engaged in spreading disinformation by asserting that it is.
Previously:
(2015) Microsoft Threatened the UK Over Open Standards
(Score: 3, Insightful) by canopic jug on Wednesday May 26 2021, @05:45PM (1 child)
And this is the very reason why DOCX was picked. Almost every single lawyer was already using msword (or, more likely, their secretary was using msword by typing from the dictation tape, but msword still).
Ok then. Which version of DOCX or MSWord? It was in the summary, but I'll point out again that DOCX is not a standard format. Not only that, it has changed before and will change again. For a historical example, look at how many incompatible versions of "DOC" there were. The incompatibilities between the different versions were the major reason for being able to force the market into paying for upgrades to new versions as M$ held the monopoly on the file formats and the suite monopoly was a secondary follow-on effect of that. The USPTO is building their registration system on sand by not selecting a standard format or better yet an open standard.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 26 2021, @05:54PM
You'd need to click through to the article, then click through to the federal register notice, to see if a particular DOCX or msword version was specified.
I have not done so, but I very much suspect that a specific version of DOCX or specific msword version was not specified, and that the notice simply says "DOCX" as if "DOCX" is an unchanging entity.
Indeed they are. The choice is pragmatic because almost all the firms are using msword. But yes, the foundation will be shaken when ms releases a newer word and starts adding incompatible bits of XML into the docx files. With the result that USPTO will then have to play "catchup" to the changes.