The previous post compared the <agents> element portion of the USPTO’s XML publication for United States Patent No. 8332851 with the <agents> element portion of the Canadian Intellectual Property Office’s XML publication for pending Canadian patent application serial no. 2699332.
CA 2699332
As seen here, the US element has a sequence="01" attribute, whereas the CA element has a sequence="0" attribute. What does this mean?
I ran this simple SQL query against a database I constructed from the CIPO’s XML bibliographic data for Canadian patent documents published during the decade spanning 2001-2011. The query says "show me the sequence attribute for every practitioner record in the database, but ignore records with sequence='0' ". The query returned zero rows. Therefore, every practitioner record in the database has sequence='0'. This suggests that the CIPO does not utilize the sequence attribute.
US 8102435
I ran another query against a database I constructed from the USPTO’s XML bibliographic data for US patents which issued in 2012, to locate <agent> elements with sequence attributes other than sequence="01". This revealed some sequence="02" and sequence="03" attributes, but no others. For example, the <agents> element in the USPTO’s XML publication for United States Patent No. 8102435 has three <agent> elements with sequence attributes of "01","02" and "03" respectively, as shown here. Further queries against the same database of US patents issued in 2012 revealed 243,545 patents with only a sequence="01" attribute; 45,461 patents with both sequence="01" and sequence="02" attributes; and 10,940 patents with sequence="01", sequence="02" and sequence="03" attributes. (The database contains records of 266,864 US patents. 23,318 of those patents do not identify an "attorney, agent or firm".) Is it surprising that the <agent> elements in the USPTO’s XML bibliographic data have sequence attributes of "01","02" or "03" , but no others? No it is not. As shown here, the USPTO’s PTOL-85B issue fee transmittal formprovides for the printing on the front page of a US patent, the names of up to 3 registered patent attorneys or agents; or the name of a single firm and the names of up to 2 registered patent attorneys or agents. Is it surprising that the CIPO does not utilize the sequence attribute in its XML bibliographic data for Canadian patent publications? Not really. Section 6 of the Canadian Patent Rules requires the CIPO to communicate only with the "authorized correspondent" in relation to a Canadian patent application. Rule 2 defines "authorized correspondent" in terms such that only one person (or firm) may be the authorized correspondent at any particular time. There is accordingly no need for the CIPO to keep track of more than one patent agent per application and thus no need for utilization of the <agent> element’s sequence attribute.
CA 2741562
What about cases that are filed and prosecuted pro se by one or more inventors without the assistance of a patent attorney or agent? No <agent> element will be found in the USPTO’s XML bibliographic data for a US patent which does not identify an "attorney, agent or firm", which makes sense. The situation in Canada is different. Since April 2008, the CIPO has used ‘NA’ (presumably an acronym for "no agent") in the <agent> element as the "name" of the agent in a pro se situation, as seen in this example from CA 2741562.
CA 2602045
The CIPO’s XML bibliographic data for documents published before April 2008 contains <agent> elements with self-closing or empty element <name/> tags in pro se situations, as seen in this example from CA 2602045.
I ran this simple SQL query against a database I constructed from the CIPO’s XML bibliographic data for Canadian patent documents published during the decade spanning 2001-2011. The query says "show me the sequence attribute for every practitioner record in the database, but ignore records with sequence='0' ". The query returned zero rows. Therefore, every practitioner record in the database has sequence='0'. This suggests that the CIPO does not utilize the sequence attribute.
Is it surprising that the <agent> elements in the USPTO’s XML bibliographic data have sequence attributes of "01","02" or "03" , but no others? No it is not. As shown here, the USPTO’s PTOL-85B issue fee transmittal form provides for the printing on the front page of a US patent, the names of up to 3 registered patent attorneys or agents; or the name of a single firm and the names of up to 2 registered patent attorneys or agents.
