Advance Notice of Change to "References Cited" on
                          the Front Page of a Patent

   Beginning with patents printed after January 1, 2001, the United States
Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) will indicate references listed by a
patent examiner on a "Notice of References Cited," Form PTO-892, with an
asterisk in the "References Cited" section of the front page of a patent
document.

   Indication of whether or not a reference was listed by the examiner will
be helpful in compiling statistical data related to prior art submissions
so that the USPTO can better consider whether changes are required to the
rules governing prior art statements. In the past, the Office has conducted
numerous surveys of application files for information regarding prior art
statements, manually reviewing the application files to retrieve
information regarding references cited. While future surveys will still
include manual review of application files, e.g., for the length of
documents cited by applicants, compiling data regarding information cited
by other than the examiner will be more efficient with this new indication.

   Indication of a reference with an asterisk should not be considered to
reflect any significance other than that the reference was listed on a
"Notice of References Cited," Form PTO-892. When an examiner lists
references on a Form PTO-892, the examiner lists  references that are
relied upon in a prior art rejection or mentioned as pertinent. See Manual
of Patent Examining Procedure (MPEP) Section 707.05(c), 7th Ed., Rev. 1
(Feb. 2000). The examiner does not list references which were previously
cited by the applicant (and initialed by an examiner) on an Information
Disclosure Statement, for example, on a PTOL-1449. See MPEP Sections 609
and 707.05(b), (c) and (d). No distinction will be made in the "References
Cited" section for other sources of references. Thus, references cited in a
protest, by an attorney or agent not acting in a representative capacity
but on behalf of a single inventor, and by the applicant will not be

   "All electronic versions of the patent will have some indication of
which references were cited by the examiner. The paper version and the
electronic images of the front page will show an asterisk as indicated
below.

   An example how the "References Cited" section of the patent will appear
is as follows:

   [56]                        References Cited

                             U.S. PATENT DOCUMENTS

   2,234,192     *      7/1955      Greene                           75/507
   4,991,048            8/1990      Larkin                          206/207
   5,000,186            12/1991     Amis                            267/340
   5,000,993     *     12/1991      Thomas et al                     75/507

                           FOREIGN PATENT DOCUMENTS

   9500000       *      6/1995      Belgium                          75/507
   2-00000       *      6/1990      Japan                            75/507
   9400000              9/1994      Unitcd Kingdom.

                              OTHER PUBLICATIONS

   Hill, "Ferrous Precipitation," Journal of the American Defenestration
   Association, Jan. 1989, Pages 34-46. *
   Clymerhill-Irons, "Ferrous Ascension for the Eighties," Proceedings of
   the International Ferrous Ascension Society, Jan.-Mar. 1979, Pages
   1111-1163.

   *cited by examiner

   Questions regarding this notice may be directed to Karin Tyson,
Senior Legal Advisor, Office of Patent Legal Administration, Office of
the Deputy Commissioner for Patent Examination Policy, by telephone at
(703)306-3159, by facsimile at (703) 872- 9411, or by e-mail to
karin.tyson@uspto.qov.

Nov. 29, 2000                                            NICHOLAS P. GODICI
                                                   Commissioner for Patents