Annex F - Amyuni PDF converter 3.0.3

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Sue Callam
Posts: 8
Joined: Tue Mar 24, 2009 1:53 pm

Annex F - Amyuni PDF converter 3.0.3

Post by Sue Callam » Tue Mar 24, 2009 2:15 pm

I have read the previous comments and we have installed Amyuni 3.0.3. As Kelly Hill advised 16 Dec 08 this now means that users have to perform an extra step, particularly if you have scanned a document and saved as pdf - the user now has to access the saved pdf and use the Amyuni pdf converter to save another pdf copy which is attached to EPOline. Surely the EPO should be working at making life easier for their customers ..... rather than the customer having to make it easier for the EPO.


alexthurgood
Posts: 58
Joined: Tue May 30, 2006 9:29 am

Re: Annex F - Amyuni PDF converter 3.0.3

Post by alexthurgood » Thu Jun 11, 2009 2:26 pm

Sue Callam wrote: Surely the EPO should be working at making life easier for their customers ..... rather than the customer having to make it easier for the EPO.

Well it might if it weren't fobbing off on its unsuspecting public such a "problematic" PDF document creator...
Come on, it isn't as if there aren't other PDF creators out there, errm even Microsoft Office can integrate PDF creation now! OpenOffice.org has had it for ages, PDF toolkits and creation libraries abound in a variety of programming languages and runtime executable modules, so what is it that ties the EPO to Amyuni ?


A bon entendeur...


Alex Thurgood
European Patent Attorney


Kelly Hill
Posts: 27
Joined: Thu Jun 17, 2004 2:23 pm
Location: Southampton, UK

Re: Annex F - Amyuni PDF converter 3.0.3

Post by Kelly Hill » Fri Jun 12, 2009 2:34 pm

Sue

we are investigating into this in our office at the moment, I have sent you a private message regarding it, I hope you don't mind.

Kind regards

Kelly
Kelly Hill


twesthues
Posts: 154
Joined: Mon Oct 13, 2003 1:44 pm
Location: Munich
Contact:

Re: Annex F - Amyuni PDF converter 3.0.3

Post by twesthues » Fri Jun 12, 2009 3:28 pm

Concerning: "... so what is it that ties the EPO to Amyuni ?"

Well, the EPO have opted for it as it allowed to set-up an installation version that would preset the Annex F requirements and disable any deviations from that. At least that was and still is the idea.

Of course, any other PDF converter is likewise suitable if configured according to the Annex F requirements which are well documented e.g. in the FAQs: http://docs.epoline.org/onlinefilingdoc ... ppo_EN.pdf

But it is true that with v4 last September, the PDF verification mechanism has been made stricter to adhere to Annex F which in some aspects turns out to be too strict, e.g. Annex F limts the page size to A4.
Well it does not say anything about tolerances and thus even a 0.001 millimetre now lead to a rejection by the OLF system - this is currently being reviewed and will be changed again such that scans from machines that were not able to produce strict A4 will be accepted again (too an extend, of course, 5% is the current idea). This is where currently users perform a workaround by re-generating the scanned image with a PDF converter that produces strict A4 measures.

And if you think that all PDFs follow the same standard, well think again:
1. not all PDFs are 100% standard conform,
2. the standard allows for some variation which any verification mechanism must then be able to cope with - this is were the problem lies.

But in hindsight, this is a quality issue which needs addressing, of course, and any user feedback is helpful in this respect.

Allow me to digress a bit:
The long term goal will be to get away from this paper imitating format PDF to a more structured and data orientated text format but although the XML standard for application-body exists already, there have been several attempts in offering tools to create the patent specification in that format (PatXML, PCT-SAFE Editor, HTML2XML converter by JPO, etc.), none has yet had the desired impact that it can fully replace the word processors with all their feature richness. If anyone comes up with a simple way of converting ODF and MS Open XML into the application-body.dtd compliant form prior to attaching it to online filing while ensuring that the user has enough confidence that the converted format contains the relevant text and data - this would be killer application.

We will improve - eventually ;-)

Thorsten
at your service for the EPO Online Services Team!


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