I won I won I won!

After ten months of petitioning, I actually got the USPTO to admit defeat! Well, actually that's not true. The very carefully worded letter granting my petition very carefully did not admit any mind-numbing incompetence fault on the part of the USPTO, only that I didn't make any mistakes.

Last things first:

• as late as February 2010, the electronic filing system splits multi-page PDFs using software based on 8.x series or older Adobe code. I need to check each and every drawing with old Adobe Readers before submission.
  
• given enough patience, time, money, and effort, the USPTO can be made to correct clerical errors! I was about to try WPO applications in an attempt to limit my dealings with the USPTO to a bare minimum.

The longer version:

I filed an application containing a PDF file of drawings. The USPTO takes this file, splits it up, and creates images of each page which are then used in the prosecution process. In this case, their software that splits up the PDFs had a bug that corrupting rendering of one page. The problem is, 1) in this case I filed just before a deadline and 2) the conversion process takes a while (manual?) and you can't check the results. So I eventually got a letter claiming that two of my drawings (the two on that page) were missing.

My first petition, stating the problem and asking that they check the originals with a newer version of Reader/Acrobat, was denied. Apparently they checked the converted images and verified that two were missing.. so clearly the problem was my fault. Argh. One of many cases where the people at the PTO obviously just don't read submissions. They just skim and guess.

So I appeal the decision. This time I include pictures. Nice, colorful screenshots of "new Reader, no problem", "old Reader, problem", "your software, same problem". And I plead in bold, "It is very important that you check the original document with a 9.x version of Adobe Reader/Acrobat."

Three months later, success! And they've even agreed to refund the $400 I paid for the privilege of saying, "hey, you guys screwed up."