What is the purpose of the PTO-948 form in patent applications?

The PTO-948 form, also known as the ‘Drawing Informalities’ form, serves the following purposes in patent applications:

• It is used by the Office of Patent Application Processing (OPAP) to indicate that the drawings submitted with the application are informal but acceptable for publication purposes.
• It notifies the examiner that the drawings may need to be corrected or replaced with formal drawings during examination.
• It provides a record in the file wrapper that the drawings have been provisionally accepted.

As stated in MPEP 507: ‘If the drawings are informal but otherwise in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d), the OPAP will accept the application for purposes of publication and place a ‘Drawing Informalities’ form PTO-948 in the file wrapper.’

This form helps streamline the application process by allowing examination to proceed while flagging the need for potential drawing improvements later in the process.

For more information on OPAP, visit: OPAP.