USPTO RFI - Transforming the Patent Application and Publication Process.pdf

Transforming the Patent Application and Publication Process

Request for Information

June 30, 2025

Facilitated by the Office of the Chief Financial Officer, Office of Procurement

Contents

I. Introduction

II. Disclaimer

III. Background

IV. RFI Submission Instructions

V. Technical Questions

VI. RFI Attachments

I. Introduction

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is conducting market research via a Request for

Information (RFI) to engage with the marketplace to gather input on industry best practices for leveraging the latest technology to improve the ingestion and management of intellectual property (IP) data to publish and issue 100% of patents publications in-house. We invite the marketplace to share innovative ideas and methods for patent application ingestion, processing, and final publication, as well as data and image conversion. The USPTO requests the marketplace to share innovative ideas and methods for patent application data curation for structured publication purposes, to include the conversion and validation of source text, image and intermediate data-objects into standardized publication-ready data.

II. Disclaimer

This RFI is NOT a solicitation and does not constitute a Request for Proposal (RFP) or Request for

Quotation (RFQ), or a promise to issue an RFP or RFQ in the future. There is no USPTO commitment or implied agreement or understanding as a result of Government action or inaction taken in response to the

RFI or the accompanying documents or attachments. The USPTO is not seeking or accepting unsolicited proposals. This RFI does not commit the Government to contract for any supply or service whatsoever.

The information provided in the RFI is subject to change and is not binding on the Government.

Additional market research may occur in the future. Telephone calls or emails requesting a solicitation will not be accepted or acknowledged.

Participation in this process is strictly voluntary. No entitlement to payment will arise as a result of the submission of a response to the RFI or the response to any questions that the USPTO may ask as a result of the submission. The USPTO will not incur or reimburse any costs for the submission of responses or activities associated with the preparation or response to this RFI, including responses to any follow-up information or action requested by the Government. Responders are advised that the USPTO is not liable for and will not pay for any information or direct, indirect, or administrative costs incurred in responding to this RFI. The USPTO has not made a commitment to procure any of the items discussed, and release of this RFI may not be construed as such a commitment or as authorization to incur cost for which reimbursement would be required or sought. All submissions become Government property and will not be returned but will be handled in accordance with applicable proprietary markings.

The USPTO may use the results obtained from this RFI to support one or more future procurements. If a solicitation develops from this RFI, the USPTO intends to utilize its procurement authority in accordance with the Patent and Trademark Office Efficiency Act 35 U.S.C. § 2(b)(4)(A).

The USPTO reserves the right to conduct one-on-one market research sessions with any of the RFI respondent(s), if deemed necessary, but is not required to conduct individual sessions with all respondents.

III. Background

The USPTO fuels the nation’s innovation by granting patents and registering trademarks. The USPTO is a repository of intellectual property data that represents our country’s spirit of entrepreneurship and creativity. The USPTO seeks to standardize the patent application and publication process by creating a streamlined process which allows for 100% in-house patent application processing of both image and text files. Text files are critical to providing clean text for search systems utilized during the examination process. Please see Attachment 1 for a copy of the current workflow between the USPTO and the Patent

Data and Document Management (PDDM) contract.

As required by 37 CFR 1.211, the USPTO publishes approximately 450,000 image and text files of utility and plant applications 18 months after the earliest effective filing date (Patent Public Search | USPTO).

The process requires extensive data conversion (to include image and text) and is referred to as Pre-Grant

Publications (PGPubs). The image and text versions of these PGPubs are loaded into the USPTO’s search tools to support the patent examiners during the patent examination process. Please see Attachment 2 –

PGPub Workflow, for how the USPTO prepares PGPubs.

In accordance with 35 U.S.C. 154, the USPTO also issues approximately 325,000 patents (referred to as

Grants) in image and text formats per year. The image versions of these patents are referred to as

Electronic Grants (eGrants) and are posted to the USPTO’s Patent Center (Patent Center | USPTO) for applicants to download and/or review. The image and text versions of these Grants are loaded into the

USPTO’s search tools to support the patent examiners during the patent examination process. As with the

PGPubs, the image and text versions of the Grant require extensive data conversion. Please see Attachment 3 – Grant Workflow, for additional details on how the USPTO prepares Patents to be issued.

The USPTO converts and composes approximately 25,000 Certificates of Correction (C of C)

(Certificates of Correction | USPTO) into an image file format per year to correct errors found in a Grant.

One of the biggest challenges to the USPTO’s ongoing data conversion efforts are Complex Work Units

(CWUs). A CWU is a block of non-narrative data the format of which and/or the content of which requires special coding—a table with columns, a multi-level mathematical equation, a chemical formula with benzene rings, a segment of a nucleotide and/or amino acid sequence, etc. Approximately 40% of patent applications include CWUs.

The USPTO is seeking the following:

1. Solution(s) for facilitating data ingestion and manipulation through the patent application lifecycle covering initial application filing through examination and into publication.

2. Solution(s) for CWU challenges – convert from image to text to facilitate incorporation into the publication process.

For security reasons, any solution must reside within the USPTO’s systems and the USPTO would require full access and insight into how the solution is being used to create the required image and text files of the PGPubs and Grants. Specifically, the following security constraints would apply to any future procurements.

Constraint Description

The USPTO must maintain sole rights to all proprietary data, models, simulations, technologies, data rights (to include search criteria), and/or any other related intellectual property developed or accessed related to, or resulting from any subsequent contract.

2 The solution must be able to integrate with the USPTO’s existing tools.

3 The solution must be cloud based.

4 The solution must be section 508 compliant.

Any internal Artificial Intelligence (AI) tool enhancements proposed as part of the solution shall not be directly accessible from the internet.

The solution will need to interact with confidential patent data under 35 U.S.C. 122 and should meet all necessary security requirements to protect such data.

The solution shall be compliant with all relevant security controls outlined in the FIPS, NIST Special Publication 800-Series, and the Federal Information Security https://www.uspto.gov/patents/search/patent-public-search https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center https://www.uspto.gov/patents/search/authority-files/certificates-correction

Management Act (FISMA) that enables the USPTO to perform activities defined by the Department of Commerce Risk Management Framework to obtain an Authority to

Operate (ATO).

The USPTO has determined the applicable North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code for this RFI is 518210: Computing infrastructure providers, data processing, web hosting, and related services.

IV. RFI Submission Instructions

Interested parties shall provide detailed responses to the below technical questions. The USPTO requests responses in one PDF file. Responses should be limited to 20 pages. There are no formatting or other restrictions on responses, and you may include charts, diagrams, video links, and any other relevant information. When submitting a response, include the following in the email subject line “RFI Response -

Transforming the Patent Application and Publication Process.” All responses must be submitted via email by July 21, 2025, at 5:00pm Eastern Time (ET) to:

Nicholas Sabellico Latashia Muse Christina Cassan

Contracting Officer Contract Specialist Contract Specialist

Nicholas.Sabellico@uspto.gov Latashia.Muse@uspto.gov Christina.Cassan@uspto.gov

In addition to responses to the technical questions, all responses shall also include a cover page with your firm’s name, address, CAGE Code, Unique Entity Identifier (UEI) number, primary point of contact information, and company small business size under NAICS 518210 (e.g., WOSB, SDVOSB, 8(a), HUBZone, etc.). Please include “OTSB” if you are not a small business concern. If a respondent believes another NAICS may be more appropriate, please identify the NAICS code that most closely aligns and use this NAICS to define your small business size status. Any questions about the RFI shall be directed by email to the aforementioned points of contact. Questions shall be submitted by July 7, 2025, at

5:00pm ET. The USPTO will post relevant questions and responses as an amendment to the SAM.gov posting that accompanies this document. Please do not ask questions that contain confidential data that you do not want to be released to the public.

V. Technical Questions

The USPTO is requesting responses to the following technical questions:

1. What capabilities do you have in unstructured image and text data conversion? (i.e., can you convert text and embedded objects into other formats?)

2. How do you handle data discrepancies and transformations during conversion?

3. What are the steps you take to validate the accuracy of the converted data, and what types of testing do you conduct post-conversion?

4. What capabilities do you have in conversion of images of tables into structured table objects?

5. What capabilities do you have in categorization/classification of unstructured image and text data? (i.e., can you recognize that an object is as in math, chemistry, special character, foreign language characters, etc.?)

6. Do you have capabilities for the bulk review of documents to verify data entry? If so, describe your related capabilities.

7. Do you have experience with XML and its use in complex document processing? If so, describe your related experience.

mailto:Nicholas.Sabellico@uspto.gov mailto:Latashia.Muse@uspto.gov mailto:Christina.Cassan@uspto.gov

VI. RFI Attachments

1. RFI Attachment 1 – USPTO and PDDM Workflow

2. RFI Attachment 2 – PG-Pub Workflow

3. RFI Attachment 3 – Grant Workflow

4. RFI Attachment 4 – Glossary of Terms