[US_Patent_and_Trademark_Office]

                  FTP Weekly Patent Bibliographic Raw Data

New Weekly issues of the patent bibliographic raw data with abstract are now
available for download via ftp. This is the source data for the PTO
Bibliographic Database which is available and searchable on this web site.
The data content is identical to the patent bibliographic magnetic tapes
sold by PTO, but is in a different tagged format, known as the "Patent
Full-Text/APS File" format, or "PTO Green Book."

Please note that this is precisely the same data which may be obtained by
searching the on-line patent database. No additional date fields are
included!

The data is available as one zipped file for each weekly issue, beginning
with week 36 of 1996. Within each zip file, the data appears in "PTO Green
Book" format as concatenated 81-character, fixed-length, linefeed
-terminated ASCII records. Each file is approximately 2 to 3 MB zipped, and
unzips to a single 20 to 30 MB ASCII file.

Other data file formats may also be available -- check the data description
below, or see the README file in the ftp directory.

   * No back issue data will be made available in this format.

   * No assurance whatever is made as to the timeliness of availability of
     future weekly issue data. Data may or may not be available each week on
     issue day. If you require timely data for a commercial or private
     enterprise, you should not rely on this source for data! The only way
     to assure timely receipt of PTO data is to purchase it or contract for
     its delivery in magnetic media format.

   * No support whatsoever is available for the use of these data files and
     the included data.

     -----------------------------------------------------------------------
                       Patent Data FTP Directory README File:

      This directory contains raw patent data for each weekly issue in the
      current calendar year.

      The data types are as follows ["nn" is a two-digit, fixed-length number
      (i.e., with leading zero), which represents the sequentially-numbered
      week of issue]:

      97weeknn.rpt     -- ASCII text file listing unused sequential patent
                          numbers and summarizing weekly contents by patent
                          type.

      97weeknn.txt     -- ASCII text file containing a list of all patent
                          numbers in the issue, one per line. (A UNIX "wc"
                          of this file should yield a line count which equals
                          the total patent number in the .rpt file.)

      97weeknn.zip     -- ASCII text file, PTO Green Book tagged data format,
                          presented as concatenated 81-character, fixed-length,
                          linefeed-terminated records, trailing blank padded,
                          zipped. A UNIX grep for "WKU" piped to "wc"
                          should yield a line count which equals the total
                          patent number in the .rpt file.



      NOTICE: The provided data formats changed as follows, on 1 September
      1997:

        1. From Week 35 (issue date 2 September 1997) on, PTO will provide
           here three weekly files: the primary data file as 97weeknn.zip;
           a weekly report file, 97weeknn.rpt; and a weekly list of patent
           numbers, 97weeknn.txt.

        2. Prior to 1 September 1997, the primary data file consisted of a
           stream of concatenated 80-character, fixed-length records,
           without any terminating character. After that date, the primary
           data file (97weeknn.zip) format became a series of concatenated
           81-character records, trailing-blank-padded with the 81st
           character being a newline (hex 0A) character.

        3. The old, BBS-format file, 97weeknn.fms.zip, is no longer
           provided. For anyone who desire to make continued use of this
           format, DOS executable and C-language source code for the
           software previously used to generate the fms file from the old
           and new primary data file formats are available for download
           here. Adaptation and use of this conversion code is strictly up
           to the user; no support whatsoever will be provided by PTO.

     -----------------------------------------------------------------------