ePave TIF formatting

Problem 1:  During validation and submission, links to the attachments were invalidated.

Solution 1:  Do not use spaces or parentheses in your file names.  This necessitated creating a whole new directory on our server according to the old DOS conventions of 8.3.  Therefore, the above file directory was renamed to C:\EFS\1037\ePAVE

Problem 2: During upload, the submission was rejected as being over 10MB in size.  This was particularly frustrating because we came so close.  In this submission we had 22 uncompressed TIFF image files at 852KB each.

That was almost 19MB just for those images.  We spoke with Bill Stryjewski at the PTO EFS department (his number is 703-308-2707).  He was very helpful and encouraging.  We worked out a system so that I paste my old 852KB TIFF files into Windows Imaging using CCITT Group 4 compression at 300 dpi.  The file size goes from 852 KB about 25 KB. 

Solution 2: Bill Stryjewski recommend we use the Windows imaging that comes with the Windows operating system.  We have a heterogeneous mixture of Windows 2000 and NT 4.0 machines.  Since we could not scan directly into the Windows imaging application (for unrelated reasons), we had to paste each page in.  

First, open up the previous scanned image, declaration, power of attorney etc.. in Windows imaging.  Then select EDIT, COPY PAGE.

Then, select NEW.  A dialog box will appear.  Select TIFF.

Then click on the Compression tab above. Select CCITT Group 4(2d) Fax.

Then click on the resolution tab and select 300dpi.

Click the OK button and a blank page will appear.  Paste the previous page into the new blank page and save.

That fixed the problem!  The new TIFF files were small enough to let the ePAVE filing go through and we received our Patent Application Serial No. in about 15 seconds.