USPTO Won't Accept Upside Down Faxes

bizwriter writes "This may seem like a joke, but it's not. The US Patent and Trademark Office will not accept patent filings faxed in if they arrive upside down. That's right, the home of innovation of the federal government is incapable of rotating an incoming fax file, whether electronically or on paper."

Comments

Re:Post ideas here.

[fuzzix]

I work at a federal regulatory agency which is having the same issue. They were asking IT/tech/computer people if there was a solution around. Nobody knew of any software that auto rotates images based on text. Anybody? Reply here.

Run gocr on the document (run 1), rotate it 180 degrees and run gocr on that (run 2).

If (no of dictionary words(run 2) > no of dictionary words(run 1)) {
        doc = rotated doc;
}

Here's the patent that blocking them

[H4x0r Jim Duggan]

That one's just an application. Here's one they granted in 1994:

• US5276742:
      Rapid detection of page orientation

Re:Upside down or 180degrees?

[natehoy]

Update: There is now a discussion on the article that covers this very topic. Someone theorized that the USPTO received blank pages (meaning that "upside down" meant "back to front".

The author's reply:

According to the people involved, that is not the case. The page was simply put in bottom side first. Otherwise, the response would have been that the received fax was blank.