Survey on the Implementation and Promotion of WIPO Standard ST.22

Response submitted by Saudi Arabia in 2011

The present questionnaire addresses issues concerning WIPO Standard ST.22 (Recommendation for the authoring of patent applications for the purpose of facilitating optical character recognition (OCR)) and patent applications submitted on paper or submitted electronically (e-filed) but having the text body of the application submitted in image form (e.g., PDF or TIFF images). Even if your Office does not perform OCR on its documents, please respond to the questions which are applicable.

A revised version of WIPO Standard ST.22 was adopted by the Standards and Documentation Working Group (SDWG) on November 21, 2008. It is available at: https://www.wipo.int/standards/en/pdf/03-22-01.pdf

The results of the survey will be presented for consideration by the Committee on WIPO Standards (CWS).

Please take note that some questions might not be displayed depending on the response(s) to preceding question(s). This could cause gaps in numbering of displayed questions and sections.

Section 1: Patent filing in your Office

1. Does your Office accept patent applications submitted on paper or submitted electronically but having the text body of the application submitted in image form (e.g., PDF or TIFF images)?

Yes

Please comment if necessary:

Currently The Office accept patent applications submitted on paper; however, applicants are required to attach a searchable soft copy of the application on a storage medium. In near future , filing will be electronically .

2. If applicable, please indicate the percentage, with respect to the total number of applications received by your Office, and the year of reference (e.g., 60% in 2008), of the following

applications filed on paper:	100% since the first application (1989)
applications filed electronically but having the text body of the application submitted in image form:	0% since the first application (1989)

3. Does your Office perform optical character recognition (OCR) on patent applications?

Section 2: Promotion and use of WIPO Standard ST.22

4. Has your Office adapted the filing guidance that it provides to applicants to take into account the recommendations of the revised version of WIPO Standard ST.22?

Partially

Please comment if necessary:

The Regulation is an adaption of WIPO Standard ST.22

5. Has your Office promoted the use by applicants of the recommendations provided by WIPO Standard ST.22?

6. If applicable, what publication means has your Office used to promote the use of WIPO Standard ST.22 (e.g., article in the official gazette, amendment of Office's filing recommendations, publication on the Office's website, newsletters)?

Please specify the details (e.g., entry or section of the official gazette, URL of the location where the announcement is available):

7. Has your Office promoted WIPO Standard ST.22 in any other way (e.g., conferences, information circulars)?

Section 4: OCR practices of IPOs

15. Does your Office have in-house quality checking measures in place to control the quality of the OCRed patent documents?

16. Does your Office OCR patent documents in foreign languages?

17. Does your Office outsource the OCR of patent documents?

18. If you answered"Yes" to the previous Question:

(a) If applicable, please indicate any comments or feedback that your Office might have received from the contractor about the recommendations of WIPO Standard ST.22:

(b) Please also describe the quality checking measures used to control the quality of the OCRed patent documents that are performed by your contractor:

(c) Since your answer to Questions 4, 8 or 13 was"Yes", please indicate whether your Office has renegotiated, or intends to renegotiate, the service contract with its contractor as a consequence of the adoption of the revised version of WIPO Standard ST.22 by the Standards and Documentation Working Group (SDWG) on November 21, 2008:

Section 5: Software and hardware used to OCR

19. What software tools does your Office, or its contractor, use to perform the OCR of patent documents?

Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro is used sometimes to perform the OCR of patent documents.

20. Has your Office, or its contractor, developed OCR software extensions specific to patent documents?

Please comment if necessary:

we have a useless old OCR software.

21. What hardware does your Office, or its contractor, use to perform the OCR of patent documents?

We have professional scanners that could be used to perform the OCR of patent documents. We use them for scanning all applications in TIFF format for publication purposes.

Please comment if necessary:

we don't need to use OCR because we oblige applicants to attach a searchable soft copy of the application on a storage medium. In near future , filing will be electronically .

Section 6: Workflow

22. Please describe the workflow for the OCR of your patent documents:

23. Does your Office itself check the quality of its OCRed patent documents?

24. Please describe how your Office handles patent documents found to be defective later in the process (e.g., after publication):

25. Please provide a concise response to the following issues concerning the storage of OCRed patent documents:

(a) Format(s) in which your Office stores the OCRed patent documents:

(b) Does the storage format(s) used by your Office allow for later quality improvements either by your Office or by external contractors?

Yes

Please comment if necessary:

the office archives all patent documents electronically for publication purposes; we could use them for quality improvements either by our Office or by external contractors.

(c) Does the storage format used by your Office allow for quick identification of patent documents with OCR defects?

Please comment if necessary:

we don't perform OCR

(d) Does the storage format used by your Office allow for different renditions to view or exchange the OCRed patent documents (e.g., PDF, HTML)?

Yes

Please comment if necessary:

We scan all applications in TIFF format for publication purposes.

(e) Does the storage format used by your Office retain all the raw detailed information obtained from the OCR process (e.g., individual character accuracy estimation, position in image, etc.)?

Yes

Please comment if necessary:

We scan all applications in TIFF format for publication purposes.

(f) Does the storage format used by your Office capture, in text format, table contents, and mathematical and chemical formulae?

We scan all applications in TIFF format for publication purposes.

26. Is the OCR of patent documents also used to increase the efficiency of the work of the Office, (e.g., bibliographic data input from paper applications can be considerably speeded up with accurate OCR)?

27. Does your Office OCR documents other than patent documents?

28. If it is known by your Office, please provide a description of the usages by your customers of the documents OCRed by your Office (e.g., internal office patent application searches by examiners, Internet patent application searches by the public, electronic products sold to private subscribers, etc.):

29. Does your Office use OCRed patent documents provided by other offices?

Section 7: Additional comments

30. Please provide further comments regarding the implementation and promotion of WIPO Standard ST.22, as well as OCR practices of your Office, if you feel it is necessary:

Our Office does not use OCR because we do not need it. All applications are required to meet the requirements of the Regulations, especially Article 8 & 11:

Article (8): Conditions and Provisions for Filing an Application

1. Applications for granting protection documents and forms shall be submitted in paper form typed on computer in Arabic (using Simplified Arabic font, size 14 for Arabic script and Times New Roman font, size 12 for Roman script) and shall be clear. A copy on an electronic medium shall be provided in accordance with the conditions stated in the chapters of this Part. The forms shall contain all the information required and answers to all the queries.

Article (11): General Conditions for the Specification:

The Specification shall include the following contents and in the following:

5. White size A4 paper shall be used.
6. The papers shall be clean, with no scratches, amendments, cancellation or any carbon stains.
7. Only one side of each paper shall be used.
8. The space between lines shall be about 1 cm.
9. Dimensions of margins (except for the drawings) in all pages shall not be less than the following: top 2 cm., right 2.5 cm., bottom 2 cm., left 2 cm., and they shall not be more than the following: top 4 cm., right 4 cm., bottom 3 cm., left 3 cm.. The margins shall be completely clear.

For more information about the Saudi Law and its Regulations:
http://www.kacst.edu.sa/en/innovation/patents/pages/regulations.aspx

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