US Patent Office Site - Image Viewer Problem

[Jim Thompson]

I visited the USPTO website today (using Mozilla Firefox) and got a
message that Quicktime Plug-In installation was required.

Quicktime is already installed on my machine, but I clicked the
install-plug-in box anyway. But it won't install, getting a "manual
install" message. That doesn't work either.

Fired up IE, it just shows the "no image" symbol.

Ideas? Or alternative plug-ins?

...Jim Thompson

 

[Jim Thompson]

I remembered AlternaTIFF, tracked it down, and installed as a Firefox
Plug-in.

...Jim Thompson

 

[John Woodgate]

I read in sci.electronics.design that Jim Thompson
4ax.com>) about 'US Patent Office Site - Image Viewer Problem', on Thu,
24 Feb 2005:

I visited the USPTO website today (using Mozilla Firefox) and got a
message that Quicktime Plug-In installation was required.

Quicktime is already installed on my machine, but I clicked the install-
plug-in box anyway. But it won't install, getting a "manual install"
message. That doesn't work either.

Fired up IE, it just shows the "no image" symbol.

Ideas? Or alternative plug-ins?

If you do find a way to get into the site, patent it. (;-)

 

[John Larkin]

I remembered AlternaTIFF, tracked it down, and installed as a Firefox
Plug-in.

...Jim Thompson

I was about to say, before you so rudely cut me off, that AlternaTiff
works for the USPTO site.

Irfanview is great for viewing saved tiff files, too. I just wish it
would view Autocad files.

John

 

[rickman]

I visited the USPTO website today (using Mozilla Firefox) and got a
message that Quicktime Plug-In installation was required.

Quicktime is already installed on my machine, but I clicked the
install-plug-in box anyway. But it won't install, getting a "manual
install" message. That doesn't work either.

Fired up IE, it just shows the "no image" symbol.

Ideas? Or alternative plug-ins?

I don't have Quicktime installed and I don't have any problem searching
at the site. Maybe you should uninstall it.

 

[Jim Thompson]

I don't have Quicktime installed and I don't have any problem searching
at the site. Maybe you should uninstall it.

I installed the AlternaTIFF plug-in for Firefox. Working just fine.

...Jim Thompson

 

[Jim Thompson]

I read in sci.electronics.design that Jim Thompson
4ax.com>) about 'US Patent Office Site - Image Viewer Problem', on Thu,
24 Feb 2005:

If you do find a way to get into the site, patent it. (;-)

;-) I installed the AlternaTIFF plug-in for Firefox. Working just
fine.

...Jim Thompson

 

[Paul Rako]

I just installed QT 6 and asked for the "custom" install as I
usually do with software. I noticed that there was a checkbox
for "TIFF file viewer". You may have to upgrade your QT or you
may have to reinstall and do the "custom" route, making sure
that TIFF viewer checkbox is checked.

Paul

 

[Jim Thompson]

I just installed QT 6 and asked for the "custom" install as I
usually do with software. I noticed that there was a checkbox
for "TIFF file viewer". You may have to upgrade your QT or you
may have to reinstall and do the "custom" route, making sure
that TIFF viewer checkbox is checked.

Paul

[snip]

Hi, Paul. Thanks for the tip.

...Jim Thompson

 

[Don Klipstein]

I visited the USPTO website today (using Mozilla Firefox) and got a
message that Quicktime Plug-In installation was required.

Quicktime is already installed on my machine, but I clicked the
install-plug-in box anyway. But it won't install, getting a "manual
install" message. That doesn't work either.

Fired up IE, it just shows the "no image" symbol.

Ideas? Or alternative plug-ins?

Use AlternaTiff (I wonder if I spelled this right), and it may only work
with Internet Explorer and Netscape.
AlternaTiff is one of two plug-ins recommended by the USPTO.

I recommend using Internet Explorer, clicking on links in the USPTO
website that mention these plug-ins, and going on from there.

Been there, done that, although I don't remember every step in detail.

One complaint - at least sometimes need to do this again after
upgrading the web browser.

One reason why this happens: TIF images for patents are often to
normally a specific subtype of TIF, as in 2-color black-and-white and
compressed with the "CCITT Group 4 (2d) Fax" compression - there are at
least 3 other TIF compressions.

Windows Imaging will display this kind of TIF, but I don't know how to
make a web browser take advantage of this.

- Don Klipstein ([email protected])