On August 27, 2013, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) announced that it upgraded the USPTO Full Text and Image Database (PatFT) to now use PDF images instead of TIFF images. Patent images may be viewed, printed and saved using a standard PDF-equipped browser. A separate TIFF plug-in is no longer required. In addition to the standard page-by-page viewing, users may now also click on a “Full Document” button to retrieve all the patent images at once.
Source: USPTO