> f <- file("f://data/uspto/files.txt","r")
> L <- scan(f,what=character(0),sep=",",n=-1)
> S = L[L!=""]
> length(S)
[1] 870
> head(S)
[1] "PatentFullTextAPSDoc_GreenBook.pdf" "ipgb20120103_wk01.zip"
[3] "ipgb20120110_wk02.zip"              "ipgb20120117_wk03.zip"
[5] "ipgb20120124_wk04.zip"              "ipgb20120131_wk05.zip"
>

http://storage.googleapis.com/patents/docs/PatentFullTextAPSDoc_GreenBook.pdf
http://storage.googleapis.com/patents/grantbib/2012/ipgb20120103_wk01.zip
http://storage.googleapis.com/patents/grantbib/1976/1976.zip

% downloading USPTO files
% by Vladimir Batagelj, October 2012

cat("Downloading USPTO files\n",date(),"\n\n")
setwd("F:/data/uspto")
urlA <- "http://storage.googleapis.com/patents/grantbib/"
f <- file("f://data/uspto/USPTOfiles.txt","r")
L <- scan(f,what=character(0),sep=",",n=-1)
close(f); S = L[L!=""]
for(d in S){
  if(substring(d,1,1)=="*") {
    s <- paste(urlA,substring(d,2,nchar(d)),'/',sep="")
    cat("\nDownloading",substring(d,2,nchar(d)),"\n")
  } else {
    page <- paste(s,d,sep="")
    cat(date(),page,'\n')
    test <- tryCatch(download.file(page,d,method="auto"),error=function(e) e)
    cat('Test =',test,'\n')
  }
}
cat("\nFinished\n",date(),"\n\n")