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**Query date: 2026-09-22.** An Information Disclosure Statement (IDS) is a filing decision, not a second way to discover what an Office Action cited. Start with the complete, traceable citation list from How to collect every OA citation in one pass. This guide then answers a narrower question: which items need to be listed, which copies or relevant portions should accompany the IDS, and what to do when an item is non-patent literature (NPL).
Begin with a source inventory
Before choosing attachments, make one worksheet for the matter. Keep the citation exactly as printed in the OA and add the normalized identifier only as a lookup aid. For each row, record:
| Field | Why it belongs in the worksheet |
|---|---|
| Printed citation and page or table position | Lets another person return to the OA and verify the source |
| `kind` | Separates `patent` from `npl`; a number alone is not classification |
| `source`, `in_ids`, `in_pto892` | Shows whether the row came from the opinion, an IDS page or a cited-reference form |
| Country, publication or application number, kind code and date | Prevents an application number, grant and publication from being silently merged |
| DOI, ISBN, RFC, URL or full bibliography | Gives the NPL researcher a useful acquisition key |
| Retrieval status and filename | Shows whether the attachment exists, is incomplete or needs manual work |
If the list is incomplete, stop and repair the collection first. The IDS article should not become a hidden replacement for an OA parser. If an English family publication was found, keep the cited publication and the family member as separate rows or clearly linked versions; a family relationship does not make two documents legally interchangeable.
What belongs on the US IDS list
For a US application, use the current USPTO form and the instructions applicable to the filing. Under 37 CFR 1.98, an IDS identifies patents, publications, applications and other information known to the person submitting it to be material. The USPTO MPEP §609 is the practical reference for the document categories and copy requirements.
Keep the categories distinct in your working table:
- US patents and US patent application publications belong in their own section of the IDS. A copy of each US patent or US application publication is generally not required when the document is available in the USPTO record, unless the Office requires it for a particular case.
- A cited foreign patent document normally needs a copy. Do not substitute an English family publication without recording why it is the selected supporting document and keeping the original citation visible.
- A pending US application that is not already available in the IFW, and other cited information for which the rule calls for a copy, need the copy or relevant portion required by the applicable guidance.
- NPL is not a patent row with a missing number. Treat each cited NPL publication, or the relevant portion allowed by the rule, as a separate attachment decision.
This is a checklist for document preparation, not a materiality opinion. The practitioner responsible for the application still decides what is known, material and timely for that matter.
NPL: decide what to obtain, then label it honestly
The OA collector can identify an NPL row, but it cannot obtain every journal, standard or conference paper. In the result, a row such as `kind: 'npl'` with `status: 'skipped-npl'` is a useful review state: it says the citation was found and classified, not that the patent downloader failed.
For each NPL row, ask four questions:
1. Is the bibliography complete enough to search? Preserve the full extracted block, DOI, ISBN, RFC or URL rather than shortening it to an author and year. 2. Does the citation require the publication itself, or is the relevant portion identified by the examiner or the filing workflow? Under MPEP §609, cited NPL publications or relevant portions are among the documents for which a copy is required. 3. Is the file the cited edition? Check title, authors, publication date, volume, pages, standard revision and access date. A later edition can be useful background but is not automatically the cited item. 4. Can the file be opened and read? A citation list, abstract page or search result is not automatically the publication copy.
If an NPL article is unavailable, keep a row marked “manual acquisition required” with the search attempts and the missing fields. Do not replace it with a patent that happens to contain the same phrase. Do not call a machine translation a certified translation, and do not silently remove a difficult citation from the IDS review.
Patent rows and NPL rows also have different delivery paths in this product. Patent rows may have original and English-family PDFs. NPL rows remain review metadata; they do not enter the patent PDF fetch function. That is why the source list and the attachment checklist must be kept together but not collapsed into one “downloaded files” count.
Prepare filenames for Patent Center
The ZIP filename used by a document-collection system is not itself an IDS filing instruction. Before uploading, make the matter and document type obvious to the next reviewer. The current DownloadPatent shapes distinguish the cited number, an English counterpart and an IDS counterpart, for example:
```text US20240039765A1.pdf US20240039765A1__EN__EP4123456A1.pdf US20240039765A1__EN_US__US20240039765A1.pdf ```
Do not invent a number in a filename. Keep the printed citation and the lookup record in the worksheet when normalization removes spaces or punctuation.
Patent Center also documents filename conventions that can help assign descriptions automatically. For an NPL PDF or DOCX, names such as `NPL_filename`, `filename_NPL`, or `filename-NPL` signal Non-Patent Literature. Foreign-reference names may use `FOR_filename`, `filename_FOR`, or the hyphenated equivalent. Treat that as an upload convenience, not as proof that the contents are correct. Confirm the document description manually.
Google machine translations are external links only: open them on Google Patents; they cannot be selected or included in a download. DownloadPatent does not generate or download rebuilt text PDFs or DOCX files. An English family publication remains a separate review document, not a certified translation.
USPTO limits are not DownloadPatent limits
As checked on the query date, the USPTO's Patent Center guidance states these upload limits:
| USPTO rule | Practical consequence |
|---|---|
| PDF up to 25 MB | Split or recompress an oversized PDF before upload; do not reduce legibility without review |
| DOCX up to 10 MB | A large DOCX may need to be separated into smaller filing documents |
| ZIP and TXT up to 50 MB | This is an upload limit, not permission to hide several unindexed documents inside one archive |
| Up to 100 documents in the Patent Center guide | Count the actual indexed documents, not merely the number of source ZIP entries |
| PDF versions 1.1 through 1.6; A4 or 8.5 x 11 inch page size | Validate the PDF itself; larger pages may be reduced and affect readability |
The Patent Center User Guide does not state a universal IDS page-count ceiling. Pages matter when one PDF contains multiple documents: select a document description for each part and enter the start and end page ranges so the Image File Wrapper can identify them. The USPTO PDF Guidelines also prohibit password protection, encryption, executables and content that cannot render directly to a printed page.
These are USPTO rules. They are separate from DownloadPatent's current 500 selected-item limit and 100 IDS-counterpart limit. A tool limit can stop a package before upload; it cannot tell you how many references the USPTO permits you to disclose. Conversely, fitting under a tool limit does not make an IDS compliant.
Use three passes before submitting
The first pass is the disclosure-list pass. Compare every row in the OA inventory with the current IDS form. Confirm that a US patent, a US application publication, a foreign patent and an NPL publication have not been collapsed into one line simply because a family search returned the same title. Keep the examiner's citation and an applicant-disclosed IDS citation distinguishable where the source metadata says they came from different places. If your prosecution workflow has a separate relevance statement or citation explanation, keep that statement tied to the correct printed citation.
The second pass is the attachment pass. For each item marked “copy required”, identify the exact file that will be uploaded and, for NPL, whether it is the publication or only a permitted relevant portion. A family PDF may help an attorney read a foreign-language document, but label it as a family counterpart. A machine translation may help internal review, but it is not the cited publication and it is not a certified translation. An abstract, a Google Patents landing page and `未能下載清單.txt` are useful review evidence; none should be silently counted as the publication copy.
The third pass is the file-integrity pass. Open every selected PDF, confirm the first and last page, compare its title and publication number with the worksheet, and check that the filename did not lose a leading zero, slash or kind code during normalization. Confirm that a multi-document file has a page map. For example, if pages 1–4 are one foreign patent, pages 5–6 are a journal article and pages 7–8 are a relevance statement, do not upload it as one unlabeled “reference.pdf”. Split it or index each part with the correct document description and page range. The person who checks the page map should be able to identify the NPL attachment without opening an unrelated patent section.
This three-pass model also makes partial preparation honest. A matter can have a complete IDS list, two foreign patent copies, one NPL item awaiting publisher access and one corrupt download. That is a useful status report. It is not a complete attachment package, and the missing items should remain visible until a practitioner decides how to proceed.
Record the decision beside the file, not only in an email. A compact note can say “listed, US publication available in IFW, no copy attached”, “listed, foreign patent copy attached”, or “listed, NPL relevant portion requested from publisher”. Include the person, date, source checked and any follow-up owner. Keep that record in the matter file for this case. This prevents a later reviewer from mistaking a missing attachment for an accidental omission. It also prevents a later family search from replacing the document that was actually cited.
The same discipline applies when an OA cites material from several offices. A US form may have one rule for a US publication, while the foreign patent and NPL rows require separate copies. Do not solve that mixed case by applying the most permissive rule to every row. Classify first, apply the relevant source and filing guidance second, then prepare files in a way that leaves the distinction visible in both the worksheet and Patent Center.
What to do when preparation fails
Do not treat a successful ZIP response as proof that every citation is ready for filing. Review the manifest and `未能下載清單.txt`. `failed-not-found` means the available sources did not confirm a document; `failed-corrupt` means a returned file could not be trusted; `failed-no-id` means the citation was not resolvable to a safe identifier; a service error means the source needs another attempt. A transient error is not the same as a confirmed absence.
For NPL, the equivalent failure is an incomplete or inaccessible bibliography. Keep the row, record the missing DOI, edition, pages or full text, and assign it to manual acquisition. For a multi-document PDF, split and label page ranges before filing. For a file over a USPTO limit, create a smaller valid file rather than placing an unlabeled archive inside an attachment.
Without DownloadPatent, a docketing team can perform this process with the OA PDF, the USPTO form instructions, official patent databases, the publisher or standards source, a worksheet and a human second check. With DownloadPatent, the collection result, patent files and failure notice are brought together, but the IDS list, attachments and final filing remain the responsible team's decision.
Foreign Office Actions
Collecting references cited in a foreign Office Action? Upload the Office Action and get the cited patent PDFs, with English counterparts where available, in one ZIP: collect cited references. For what 37 CFR 1.98 requires for foreign and non-English references, see Foreign references for an IDS.