How are lengthy tables treated in patent documents?
Lengthy tables, which are tables on more than 200 consecutive pages or large numbers of tables, are treated differently in patent documents:
- They are not published as part of the patent document (e.g., patent or patent application publication)
- Instead, they are published separately on the sequence homepage of the USPTO website
- A standardized statement is inserted in the patent document indicating the presence of lengthy tables and providing access instructions
This approach is used to manage the cost of printing long tables in patent documents. The USPTO states:
The cost of printing long tables in patent documents is very expensive to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
This treatment applies to lengthy tables submitted on read-only optical discs, as text files via the USPTO patent electronic filing system, or in certain electronic formats in response to a specific request from the Office of Data Management.
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