Abstract
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO), as part of its Automated Patent System, intends to capture and store over 30 trillion bytes of compressed, digitized image data on optical media. The PTO is currently testing a subset of the image retrieval patent search system. The subset contains one million pages of digital image data and is maintained on optical disks for retrieval by 50 online users. The PTO's experience to date has indicated that several possibilities exist to enhance the digital image processes.