Wrong countryType value

[AstriumServices]

Dear all,

While making a query based on family number, I have received a resulted XML including wrong countryType value for the office property of the citation item.

Code: Select all

  <citation cited-phase="international-search-report" cited-by="examiner" sequence="1" office="??">

My XML parser in C# does not accept to validate the XML file since "??" is not part of the enum values of the countryType defined in the exchange_documents.xsd (latest version available on your web site).
Herein below the query to get the data where the problem has been highlighted.
https://ops.epo.org/3.1/rest-services/p ... ange=1-100

Any idea what's wrong with this unexpected countryType value ?
I did not manage to add "??" value in the enum list of my wrapper class. Special characters are vorbidden in C# enum. Happy to capture some advice/tips if any from the community.

In addition, XSD schema (exchange_documents.xsd ) mentions the "stateless" as possible value for countryType but I did not find its definition in the schema.

Code: Select all

<xs:element name="country" type="countryType">
    <xs:annotation>
      <xs:documentation>
Country: use ST.3 country code; e.g. DE, FR, GB, NL, etc.
Also includes EP, WO. Always in upper case. Also can use "stateless"
        
			</xs:documentation>
    </xs:annotation>
  </xs:element>

Could you clarify the definition of the "stateless" value and its usage ?

Thanks for your feedback
Kind regards

Michel