This Is Our “17 Seconds” Newsletter #117: 17 Seconds = Useful Info Quickly.
I have seen some ill-conceived policies rolled out by the USPTO in my time, but the requirement that patent applications be submitted in Microsoft’s proprietary DOCX format is one of the worst.
When I became a patent attorney in 1995, patents were filed in paper, filing receipts were postcards. Clocktower sent/received our last postcard in 2007.
Around 2007, Clocktower started filing patents electronically as image PDFs. The USPTO then OCRed the image PDFs into renderable text. This lasted until around 2010, when PDFs with renderable text were allowed to be filed. PDFs may not be perfect, but multiple applications produce accurate PDFs of the source documents.
Then the USPTO got in bed with Microsoft.
On 2024-01-17, the USPTO enacted a $400 Microsoft tax for those with the temerity not to file patents in the DOCX format (https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx).
Clocktower will not be bullied into using a buggy proprietary file format from a monopolistic tech giant that has no commitment to open source standards (such as the ODT format used by the OpenOffice.org project). We will continue to work to minimize our time on make-work projects that increase costs for our clients.
For more on Clocktower’s commitment to open source, see the “Open Source” category on our website (https://www.clocktowerlaw.com/category/open-source) and on Erik’s blog (https://www.giantpeople.com/category/open-source).
For more on the DOCX debacle, see the “Non-DOCX Penalty” category on Carl Oppedahl’s “Ant-Like Persistence” blog (https://blog.oppedahl.com/category/patents/non-docx-penalty/).
And, I don’t know, write to your representatives in Congress or something.
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[EDITOR’S NOTE: In the summer of 2025, Clocktower Intern Mark Magyar used artificial intelligence (AI) software to shorten over 100 Clocktower articles by 17%. The shortened articles are included as comments to the original ones. And 17 is the most random number (https://www.giantpeople.com/4497.html) (https://www.clocktowerlaw.com/5919.html).]
* USPTO Unilaterally Enacts $400 ‘Microsoft Tax’ On Patent Applications
This Is Our “17 Seconds” Newsletter #117: 17 Seconds = Useful Info Quickly.
I’ve seen bad USPTO policies, but requiring patent applications in Microsoft’s proprietary DOCX format is one of the worst.
When I became a patent attorney in 1995, patents were filed on paper, and filing receipts were postcards. Clocktower sent/received its last postcard in 2007.
Around 2007, we began filing patents electronically as image PDFs, which the USPTO OCRed into text. By 2010, PDFs with renderable text were allowed. PDFs aren’t perfect, but multiple apps create accurate PDFs from source docs.
Then the USPTO got in bed with Microsoft.
On 2024-01-17, the USPTO enacted a $400 “Microsoft tax” for not filing in DOCX (https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx).
Clocktower won’t be bullied into using a buggy, proprietary format from a monopolistic tech giant with no commitment to open-source standards (like ODT from OpenOffice.org). We’ll continue minimizing time wasted on such make-work projects to keep costs low for clients.
For more on our open-source stance, see the “Open Source” category on our site (https://www.clocktowerlaw.com/category/open-source) and Erik’s blog (https://www.giantpeople.com/category/open-source).
For more on the DOCX debacle, see Carl Oppedahl’s “Non-DOCX Penalty” posts on Ant-Like Persistence (https://blog.oppedahl.com/category/patents/non-docx-penalty/).
And, seriously, write to your representatives in Congress.