USPTO reduces paper by scanning paper documents
August 29th, 2008 by Prasad Thammineni
The US Patent trademark office (USPTO) has gone digital by implementing a system where all applications that it will receive from now on will be scanned first before they are processed. Furthermore, as of August 27th, 2008, it does not require applicants to submit duplicate copies of all Patent service request forms. Incidentally, even the letter that announced the change was scanned and published on their web site as a PDF.
The USPTO required applicants to submit duplicate copies since two of the business functions, namely, processing of the fees and processing of the applications, where performed in two different parts of the USPTO office. Now with each application being scanned at the time of receipt, the entire USPTO can access these applications from anywhere and anytime.
This is a great first step for an over burdened government organization to make business processes efficient, fast and less expensive. We only hope that this will decrease the overall application processing times.
August 30th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
Lot of government organizations are definitely going paperless. They do scan the documents and save copies in high/low resolutions. Low resolutions or redacted docs get published to the public websites for general consumption.
I was looking around to see if you are exploring this idea with user docs. With proper redaction you could ask people to share stuff and then one would get an idea on how the bills or letters are looking.
Good luck with the service.
September 4th, 2008 at 10:58 am
Hello again - Just came across a NYTimes article on Earthclassmail and then I immediately thought about you guys. If haven’t already come across this story or business you have to check it out.
September 8th, 2008 at 12:21 am
@Collagist
Thank you for the comments. Redaction is one of the features that is in our list of to dos. This should give users additional control over what to share and what not to share.
I did read NYTimes and one again thanks for bringing it to our attention.