By Donald Zuhn —

Last fall, we reported on a memorandum of understanding that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), European Patent Office (EPO), and Japan Patent Office (JPO) had reached during the 25th Annual Trilateral Conference.  One aspect of this agreement concerned a Common Application Format (CAF), which would allow applicants to prepare a single application that would be accepted by each Office.

At the time of the Conference, the CAF had not yet been disclosed.  The USPTO has now released additional information concerning the CAF.  With respect to the format itself, the USPTO provided an example of a format that complies with the CAF requirements:

Description
    Title of Invention
    Technical Field
        0001
    Background Art
        0002
    Summary of Invention
        Technical Problem
        0003
        Solution to Problem
        0004
        0005
        Advantageous Effects of Invention
        0006
    Brief Description of Drawings
        0007
            Fig. 1
            Fig. 2
    Description of Embodiments
        0008
        Examples
        0009
        0010
        Example 1
        0011
        Example 2
        0012
    Industrial Applicability
        0013
    Reference Signs List
        0014
    Reference to Deposited Biological Material
        0015
    Sequence Listing Free Text
        0016
    Citation List
        Patent Literature
        0017
        Non Patent Literature
        0018
Claims
    Claim 1
    Claim 2
Abstract
Drawings
    Fig. 1
    Fig. 2
Sequence Listing

The USPTO noted that while some of the requirements of the CAF go beyond current Patent Office rules and procedures, the new format was nevertheless consistent with such rules and procedures.  Therefore, the Office announced that it would accept applications that used the new format.  The USPTO also announced that the EPO would be implementing the CAF in early 2009, and that the JPO would be implementing most of the CAF requirements in early 2009 with the remainder of the requirements to be implemented in 2011.

The Patent Office announcement also contains links to information regarding the basic principles of the CAF, common requirements for documents under the CAF, and a comparative table of examples for applications.  With respect to the common requirements, some aspects of the CAF include the following:

• Applicants will not be required to remove National Legends (i.e., cross references to related applications and statements regarding federal funding) from the description.
• A statement of industrial applicability shall be included when it is not obvious from the description or nature of the invention.
• Applicants will not be required to remove any reference citation list from the description.
• Applicants shall use the International System of Units (SI) in the description, but may use additional alternative unit systems as long as SI units are placed in parentheses.
• Paragraphs of the description (but not the title or section headings) shall be numbered consecutively using Arabic numerals.
• Mathematical or chemical formulae shall be preceded by a sign indicating that the formula is mathematical ("Math.") or chemical ("Chem."), followed by a space, and then by an Arabic numeral (e.g., Chem. 1)
• Tables shall be preceded by a sign indicating that the table is a table ("Table"), followed by a space, and then by an Arabic numeral (e.g., Table 1)
• Claims shall be preceded by a sign indicating that the claim is a claim ("Claim"), followed by a space, and then by an Arabic numeral (e.g., Claim 1).