a. A structure of an electronic document adapted for patents and patent applications use is illustrated, including changes made by applicant. New matter may be added to various parts of the original application, for clarification or enhancement.

According to Patent law, various parts of a patent application may have each a different filing date, if they are distinguishable from each other.

If the parts are indistinguishable, all the application may receive the later filing date, an undesirable situation to be avoided by the applicant.

A problem with this definition is how to clearly indicate, for each part of the application, its filing date.

Another problem is how to indicate, for each claim, the text it depends on, so each claim is assigned its specific filing date.
For each claim, a prior art search is performed, up to that date.

Often, an application is also filed in another country; a national application is files as an international application PCT, or vice versa.
Such filings may involve a translation of the application document.
It is important to relate each part (sentence or paragraph) of the second application, to its corresponding part in the first application, to verify the translation whilst focusing on the important issues.

Often, filing an application based on another also involves changes in format, to comply with PCT or national laws and regulations. The patent agent may slightly modify sentences or move them from one part to another, being careful not to make substantial changes in the application.

It is important to indicate the precise changes that were made, to allow a verification that indeed no new matter was added and no substantial changes occurred.
Such verification may be required during examination of the application, during protest or review by the public, or in court proceedings.

b. The novel structure of a patent application 81A, 81B, 81C in electronic document form, may solve these problems. The document includes Both the original document And changes performed therein; Changes are indicated in a precise, Provably Correct Form, with proof that the document complies to Patent Law and regulations regarding permitted changes.

c. The electronic document 81A may include:
1) the Text of Original Disclosure TOD 811,
2) additional info such as Inventor and Document-Related info IDRI 812, for example as indicated in the patent application filing forms, and info relating to filing the application, for example filing date and location.
3) a Cyclic Redundancy Code CRC 813 to detect/correct errors, and
4) a DIgital Signature DIS 814 to preserve the integrity of the digital document. It may use for example a public encryption method, with the user's private key as arranged with the Patent Office for example.

This is the original patent application as filed, in electronic document form.

The text TOD 811 is preferably a Unicode UTF-8 code text (one byte per character), in an open structure, completely visible for various software packages. This is important, to ensure that no extraneous matter (things that the inventor did not intend to disclose) are included in the file. A patent document is an utilitarian/functional instrument, so preferably fancy fonts and artwork should be rejected for the benefit of inventor's protection.

Preferably, if the description was initially written using a commercial text editor such as Word or Wordperfect, it should be stripped to preserve only the text itself (and possibly the mathematical equations), and delete all the additional matter (info not written by the author), to form TOD 811.

The IDRI part may indicate whether this is a draft, or an already filed application, ie using a predefined bit or byte there. If it is a draft, the Editor will allow changes to be made in the original text TOD 811; if it was filed as an application, the Bonded Editor will prevent any changes from being made to the text TOD 811. Rather, distinguishable changes will be appended to the text, ie as indicated in steps (d) - (h) of this Method.

When closing the Text TOD 811 part (ie on filing the application) the system may write in IDRI the details of the filing - filing date, by whom, where, etc.

The Cyclic Redundancy Code CRC may use prior art methods to detect and correct errors in the text.

The DIgital Signature DIS may use various encryption methods such as public key encryption, for example with a public key from the Patent Office.

d. After filing the original application, the applicant may subsequently desire to add text or otherwise change the original patent application.
Steps (d) - (i) here may be used to amend the application after filing, filing a second amendment etc., drafting a second patent application claiming priority from the first, a divisional, continuation, etc.

Electronic documents 81B, 81C, etc. are then formed. Actually, there is no need to form new documents, this notation is here presented for clarity; rather, the same document can be changed with the additions of blocks to indicate changes to be performed on prior versions thereof.

Thus, files 81B and 81C preferably are the file 81A after being changed.

Additional text is appended to the original file as TeXt of aDditions TXD. The block Change Operations Performed COP indicates where to insert each sentence or paragraph of the text, and what other edit operations were performed.

Patentability criteria: Applicants should be aware that, during examination, a positive limitation from the specification cannot be read into a claim that does not itself impose that limitation. Examiners give a broad interpretation to a claim to reduce the possibility that the claim, when issued, will be interpreted more broadly than is justified or intended.

An applicant can amend a claim during prosecution to better reflect the intended scope of the claim, however surrendered matter cannot be reclaimed. Patentics(SM) can advantageously be used to plan an effective strategy during examination, both to save examiner's time and to achieve as good a patent protection as is due.

Such amendments as necessary may be made at various stages and one can keep track of all the changes using the present method.