Microsoft Word - 2026-06-24 cover letter over resubmission of 2024 slides 260626 1235

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This was intended to be the cover message over my submission 20 minutes ago,
However, regulations.gov gives an error message, so I am submitting it as a PDF.
Attached are several letters and a meeting handout presented by me, David Boundy on
behalf of PTAAARMIGAN, Brad Forrest on behalf of AIPLA, and Richard Baker on
behalf of NAPP in May 2024. In it we point out a number of technological flaws in
DOCX filing, show that PDF/A is a standard that guarantees the properties that the
USPTO and public need for patent application filing, and point out a number of
procedural lapses--including outright falsehoods—in the PTO’s rulemaking and
submissions to OMB.
- We provide a number of examples of DOCX filings gone wrong. In its 2023 Supporting
Statement, the USPTO claims “The USPTO is simply not seeing the unreliability asserted
by the commenter.” This claim is remarkable for the audacity of its falsehood. In the
attachment, we give several examples of errors reported to the USPTO. In several the
USPTO acknowledged it had made an error. In one it was forced to pay an $8000 refund
to correct its own error. The USPTOs claim of “simply not seeing” is either an intentional
lie or willful blindness. If the USPTO has a system for finding and tracking errors, please
explain it—but if the USPTO is not actively gathering information, it is unhelpful for the
USPTO to discount the experiences of applicants and instead realy on opinion based on
personal ignorance. Perhaps the USPTO intentionally Chinese Walls Mr. Isaac and Mr.
Tamayo from the rest of the Office so they can make statements of non-knowledge.
Nonetheless, the USPTO is fully aware of “unreliability.” Mr. Isaac’s and Mr. Tamayo’s
representations were false at the time.
-- We provided several statements that the USPTO had made to the public and OMB that
are either outright false, or only truthful in the most hyper-literal sense, while being
framed to communicate a statement that is 180° opposite. The later phases of an ICR are
ex parte; the USPTO’s lawyers operate under the obligations of candor of Professional
Responsibility Rule 3.3.
- In the 2019 NPRM and 2020 final rule, the USPTO claimed “The collection of
information involved in this Final Rule have been reviewed and previously approved by
the OMB.” That was a lie. At the time, no filing had even been made. The first filing
didn’t come until September 2023. This claim of “previously approved” appears to be
part of the boilerplate in all USPTO rulemaking notices, regardless of truth. It’s a pattern
of false representation.
- Similarly, the USPTO claimed to be exempt from Executive Order 12866 because the
fee-setting rule is a “transfer payment.” Perhaps the USPTO’s user fees are transfer
payents, but the DOCX surcharge is not. This is one example of a pattern of false claims
of exemption from rulemaking that pervades the USPTO’s rulemaking.
Please accept the attachment as a comment on this ICR, and respond to it comment by
comment.

Please do not recharacterize comments--respond to them fairly. Please do not respond
with non sequturs that evade the comment. Please familiarize yourself with terms of art
such as “interoperability standard” and “open source,” so that your responses do not
demonstrate the buffoonery of not knowing the meanings of technological terms. Please
do not demonstrate willful avoidance of learning what words mean and their relevance.
Under 44 U.S.C. § 3506(c)(3) and 5 C.F.R. § 1320.9, the Office is required to “provide a
record supporting” each of its claims—please cite evidence for the USPTO’s positions,
and please do not stand on personal opinions. Please do not contradict statements in the
three relevant standard (ISO/IEC 29500 (the DOCX standard), ISO 19005-4 (the PDF/A4 standard), and ISO/IEC 3200 (the base PDF standard)) without explaining in detail why
the USPTO believes that the documents do not mean what they say. Please do not
attribute to standards documents promises that they do not state—for example, ISO/IEC
29500 makes no claim whatsoever that DOCX provides a reproducible, uniform,
consistent “reliable source of structured text" (in fact, by reserving "implementation
defined" behaviors, it promises the opposite) -- if the USPTO believes otherwise, please
identify and cite specific statements in the standard document.
Citations to evidence are essential to honesty and accuracy. The DOCX standard,
ISO/IEC 29500, is not at https://www.iso.org/committee/45374/x/catalogue The USPTO
has given this cite repeatedly, from the NPRM in 2019 to the Supporting Statement in
2023. That URL is wrong. This repetition of uncorrected error strongly suggests that the
USPTO acts with contempt for fact and accuracy, and has never bothered to read the
standard before making representations about what it guarantees and what it does not. I
obtained copies of the ECMA and ISO/IEC DOCX standards; they are available at
https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewDocument?ref_nbr=202309-0651-002 . In
my letters, I quote them at length. In its papers, the PTO contradicts the standards over an
over, never citing any evidence for its opinions. Please take the steps that honest
competent people take to be accurate.