United States Patent and Trademark Office OG Notices: 15 January 2002
Payment of the Issue Fee and Filing
Related Correspondence by Facsimile
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) reminds
patent applicants that 37 CFR 1.6(d) permits payment of an issue fee
and a publication fee (if required) by facsimile transmission.
Applicants may pay the issue or publication fee (or any fee) by
facsimile transmission by submitting an authorization to charge the fee
to a deposit account or an authorization to charge the fee to a credit
card. If payment is made by an authorization to charge the fee to a
credit card, the USPTO encourages use of form PTO-2038 (which will not
be retained in the file and will not become open for public inspection).
Form PTO-2038 may be downloaded at http://www.uspto.gov/web/forms/2038.pdf
from the USPTO website.
The applicable telephone numbers for payment of the issue and/or
publication fee(s) by facsimile transmission are as follows:
Fax number for Box Issue Fee: (703) 746-4000
Telephone number to check on receipt of facsimile
payment (with Office of Publications): (703) 305-8283
The issue fee (or any other fee) may not be paid by an oral authorization
to: (1) charge the fee to a credit card or deposit account, or (2) re-apply
a previously-paid issue fee to a more recently required issue fee. If the
issue fee was paid in an application, and the application was later
withdrawn from issue, applicant must still reply in writing to the
subsequent Notice of Allowance and Issue Fee Due (or to the Notice of
Allowance and Fee(s) Due, the current version of the same form), preferably
with a copy of the PTOL-85B (the issue fee transmittal or fee transmittal
form).
Corrected drawings are frequently submitted concurrently with the
issue fee. To allow for the submission of acceptable corrected drawings
concurrently with the issue fee by facsimile transmission, the USPTO is
hereby sua sponte waiving the prohibition in 37 CFR
1.6(d)(4) against the submission of drawings by facsimile when drawings
are facsimile transmitted with the issue fee. Applicants should still
consider the type of drawing in terms of reproducibility by the
receiving facsimile machine, recognizing that the quality of the
drawings may be affected by the transmission process, before deciding
to transmit drawings to the USPTO by facsimile transmission. Should the
USPTO receive an unacceptable reproduction, applicants will be so
informed and given an opportunity to resubmit acceptable corrected
drawings by mail.
One benefit of submitting payments of issue fees via facsimile
transmission to the above-identified number is that an acknowledgment
confirming receipt of the transmission by the USPTO will be
automatically transmitted back to the facsimile number in the sender's
facsimile identification programmed into the sender's facsimile
machine. The USPTO's facsimile server can only be programmed to obtain
a telephone number from the sending machine facsimile ID. Accordingly,
applicants are advised to ensure that their facsimile machines or
software are configured to transmit accurate ID data including their
correct facsimile telephone number. The automatic transmission of a
receipt will be attempted promptly after the facsimile transmission is
received. Five attempts will be made, at five-minute intervals, to
transmit the receipt if the line is busy or if there is no answer. The
receipt will indicate the date and time of receipt at the USPTO of each
facsimile transmission, the number of pages received, and a
reduced-size image of the first page. If an incorrect facsimile
telephone number is provided in the facsimile ID or a facsimile
connection cannot be established, no receipt will be sent. Because the
receipts are automatically generated by the USPTO's software, the USPTO
is unable to provide replacement receipts.
The payment of the issue fee should be processed in the USPTO
Revenue Accounting Management (RAM) system within one business day.
Currently, when an issue fee is processed in RAM for an application in
which payment of the issue fee is appropriate, an "IFEE" contents
entry is created in the Patent Application Location Monitoring (PALM)
system's records for that application. Later, when the fax is entered
into the patent application file, a corresponding contents entry (N084)
will be recorded in PALM. PALM is a USPTO computer records system that
lists the status and contents of each patent application. Status and
contents information for patent applications in PALM, while kept
confidential by the USPTO, are available to applicants and their
representatives via the Internet and the private side of the Patent
Application Information Retrieval system (PAIR). Thus, the private side
of PAIR can be used to determine if an issue fee has been received and
if a fee transmittal form (PTOL-85B) (or any paper) has been entered
into the application file. Note: the public side of PAIR provides
access to the public to such information only after an application has
been published or patented. Enrollment information and downloadable
software for PAIR can be found on the USPTO's web site at
http://www.uspto.gov/ebc.
Notwithstanding this notice, applicants may continue to submit
the issue fee and the publication fee, if required, using the
certificate of mailing procedure set forth in 37 CFR 1.8 or Express
Mail procedure set forth in 37 CFR 1.10.
Questions related to the receipt of issue and publication
fee payments should be directed to the Customer Service Center of the
Office of Publications by telephone at (703) 305-8283. Questions
of a legal nature may be directed to Eugenia Jones (by phone (703)
306-5586 or by e-mail to eugenia.jones@uspto.gov) or Hiram Bernstein
(by phone (703) 305-8713 or by e-mail to hiram.bernstein@uspto.gov),
Senior Legal Advisors, Office of Patent Legal Administration.
December 20, 2001 ROBERT SPAR for
STEPHEN G. KUNIN
Deputy Commissioner for
Patent Examination Policy