(Redirected from US Patent Office)
Official seal of the USPTO
The 'United States Patent and Trademark Office' ('PTO' or 'USPTO') is an agency in the
United States Department of Commerce that provides
patent protection to
inventors and businesses for their inventions, and
trademark registration for product and
intellectual property identification.
The USPTO is currently based in
Alexandria, Virginia, after a 2006 move from the
Crystal City area of
Arlington, Virginia. Since
1991, the office has been fully funded by fees charged for processing patents and trademarks. The current head of the USPTO is
Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property Jon W. Dudas, who was nominated to the position by President George W. Bush in March 2004 and was then appointed on
July 30,
2004.
PTO headquarters in Alexandria
The USPTO cooperates with the
European Patent Office (EPO) and the
Japan Patent Office (JPO) pursuant to
trilateral agreements. The USPTO is also a Receiving Office, an International Searching Authority and an International Preliminary Examination Authority for international patent applications filed in accordance with the
Patent Cooperation Treaty.
Mission
The mission of the PTO is to promote "industrial and technological progress in the
United States and strengthen the national economy" by:
★ administering the laws relating to patents and trademarks;
★ advising the
Secretary of Commerce, the
President of the United States, and the administration on patent, trademark, and
copyright protection; and
★ providing advice on the trade-related aspects of
intellectual property.
Structure
The PTO has about 7,300 employees, nearly all of whom are based at its huge five-building headquarters complex in Alexandria. Of those, about 3,000 are
patent examiners and 400 are
trademark examining attorneys; the rest are support staff. Patent examiners are generally scientists and engineers who do not necessarily hold law degrees, while all trademark examiners must be licensed attorneys. All examiners work under a strict quota system.
In recent years, the USPTO has seen increasing delays between when a patent application is filed and when it issues. To address its workload challenges, the USPTO has undertaken an aggressive program of hiring and recruitment. In Fiscal Year 2006 (year ending September 30, 2006), the USPTO hired 1,193 new patent examiners.
[1] The USPTO expects to continue hiring patent examiners at a rate of 1,200 per year from 2007 through 2012.
In 2006, USPTO also instituted a new training program for patent examiners called the "Patent Examiner Training Academy." It is an eight-month program designed to teach new patent examiners the fundamentals of patent law, practice and examination procedure in a college-style environment.
[2].
Fee diversion
Each year,
Congress "diverts" about 10% of the fees that the USPTO has collected into the general treasury of the United States. In effect, this takes monies collected from the patent system to use for the general budget. This fee diversion is generally opposed by patent practitioners (e.g
patent attorneys and
patent agents),
inventors, and the USPTO.
[3] These stakeholders would rather use the funds to improve the patent office and patent system, such as by implementing the USPTO's 21st Century Strategic Plan.
[4]
Patents
First US patent
★ Each year, the PTO issues
thousands of patents to companies and individuals all around the world. As of
March 2006, the PTO has issued over seven million patents.
★ The
X-Patents (the first 10,000 issued between
1790 and
1836) were destroyed by a fire; less than 3,000 of those have been recovered and re-issued with numbers that include an "X". The X is generally at the end of the number, except for the first patent which has the X at the beginning of the number. The X distinguishes the patents from those issued after the fire.
★ On July 31,
1790, the USPTO awarded its first
patent to
Samuel Hopkins for an improvement "in the making of
Pot ash and
Pearl ash by a new Apparatus and Process." This patent was signed by then president
George Washington.
Trademarks
The USPTO examines applications for
trademark registration. If approved, the trademarks are registered.
Representation
The PTO only allows certain qualified persons to practice before the PTO. ''Practice'' includes filing of patent applications on behalf of inventors, prosecuting patent applications on behalf of inventors, and participating in administrative appeals and other proceedings before the PTO examiners and boards. The PTO sets its own standards for who may practice and requires that any person who practices become registered. A USPTO-registered non-attorney professional is called a
patent agent and an USPTO-registered attorney is called a
patent attorney.
In order to become registered to practice before the USPTO, an applicant must demonstrate to the USPTO's satisfaction certain scientific and technical competencies (such as having a science or engineering degree) and then pass a difficult USPTO-administered patent bar exam called the
USPTO registration examination. This bar exam covers the voluminous regulations and procedures that govern USPTO practice. The registration process is managed by the USPTO's Office of Enrollment & Discipline (OED).
[5]
Individual inventors may file and prosecute patent applications by themselves by a process of ''
pro se'' patent filing. The inventor is not required to be represented by a registered patent attorney or patent agent. If it appears to a patent examiner that an inventor filing a pro se application is not familiar with the proper procedures of the patent office, the examiner may suggest that it would be desirable for the inventor to obtain representation by a licensed patent attorney or agent.
[6] The patent examiner cannot recommend a patent attorney or agent, but the patent office does post a list of registered attorneys or agents.
[7]
It is not uncommon for individual inventors to file their own patents to potentially save thousands of dollars in agent/attorneys fees, since legal fees for the preparation and filing of a US patent application can run more than US$20,000. While an inventor of a relatively simple-to-describe invention may well be able to produce an adequate specification and accompanying drawings for a utility application, the complexity lies in what is claimed, either in the particular claim language of a utility application, or in the manner in which drawings are presented in a design application. Moreover, failure to adequately respond to an office action from the USPTO can endanger the inventor's rights, and may lead to abandonment of the application.
Patent agents can only act in a representative capacity in patent matters at the USPTO, and cannot represent an applicant for a trademark. Trademark applicants may be represented by any state bar licensed attorney sufficiently capable of handling trademark matters, governed by the rules of professional responsibility. There is no analogous "trademark agent" exam.
Electronic filing system
The USPTO will accept patent applications filed in electronic form. As of March 2006, inventors or their patent agents/attorneys can file applications as
PDF documents. The web page for submitting applications is
https://sportal.uspto.gov/secure/portal/efs-unregistered. Filing fees can be paid by credit card or by a USPTO “deposit account”.
Electronic retrieval system
The
USPTO web site provides free electronic copies of issued patents and patent applications as single-page
TIFF documents. The site also provides rudimentary search and analysis tools.
The USPTO's free distribution service only distributes the patent documents as a set of single page files. Numerous commercial services provide patent documents in other formats, such as
PDF and
CPC.
Criticisms
Controversial patents
In
November 2005, the USPTO was criticized by physicists for granting for an
anti-gravity device. The journal ''
Nature'' first highlighted this patent issued for a device that presumably amounts to a
perpetual motion machine, defying the laws of physics.
[8][9][10][11] The device comprises a particular electrically
superconducting shield and elecromagnetic generating device. The examiner allowed the claims because the design of the shield and device was novel and not obvious.
[12] In situations such as this where a substantial question of
patentability is raised after a patent issues, the Commissioner of the Patent Office can order a
reexamination of the patent.
, "
Method of exercising a cat", which covers having a cat chase the beam from a laser pointer, is widely criticised as being obvious.
, "
Sealed crustless sandwich", approved in 1999, which covers the design of a sandwich with crimped edges.
Slow patent examination
The USPTO has been criticized for taking an inordinate amount of time in examining patent applications. This is particularly true in the fast growing area of
business method patents. As of 2005, patent examiners in the business method area were still examining patent applications filed in
2001.
The delay has been attributed by spokesmen for the Patent Office to a combination of a sudden increase in business method patent filings after the 1998
''State Street Bank'' decision, the unfamiliarity of patent examiners with the business and financial arts (e.g. banking,
insurance, stock trading etc.), and the issuance of a number of controversial patents (e.g. "
Amazon one click patent") in the business method area.
Effective in August 2006, the USPTO introduced an
accelerated patent examination procedure in an effort to allow inventors a speedy evaluation of an application with a final disposition within 12 months. The procedure requires additional information to be submitted with the application and also includes an interview with the examiner.
[13] The first accelerated patent was granted on March 15, 2007 with a 6 month issuance time.
[14]
See also
★
United States patent law
★
Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences (BPAI)
★
Confederate Patent Office
★ ''
Ex Parte Quayle''
★
Invention Secrecy Act
★
John Ruggles
★
Old Patent Office Building
★
Patent office
★
Patent Office Professional Association (POPA)
★
Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB)
★
Trilateral Offices
References and notes
1. USPTO Annual Report 2006, Patent Performance
2. USPTO Annual Report 2006, The Nature of the Training Provided to USPTO Examiners
3.
4. Strategic Plan for the 21st Century
5. OED Mission ''Note: the original link location appears to no longer be available.''
6. ''Manual of Patent Examining Procedure'', Chapter 400
7. List of registered attorneys or agents.
8. Antigravity craft slips past patent officers, , Philip, Ball, Nature,
9. Patent issued for anti-gravity device
10. Antigravity Machine Patent Draws Physicists' Ire
11. An untraceable link was also included here as an additional reference.
12. Notice of Allowance and Fees Due (PTOL-85) Ramon M Barrera (examiner) ''Note: Navigate to the 'Image File Wrapper' to find the file; download and open with a PDF reader.'' The specific passage from the document follows: "The following is an examiner's statement of reasons for allowance: None of the prior art of record taught or disclosed the claimed superconducting shield and electromagnetic field generating means structure."
13. USPTO Accelerated Patent Examination
14. Press Release: USPTO GRANTS FIRST PATENT UNDER NEW ACCELERATED REVIEW OPTION
External links
★ USPTO
★
★
Main page
★
★
Searches
★
★
Office of Enrollment & Discipline (OED)
★
★
Patent and Trademark Depository Library Program
★
★
Stopfakes.gov Small Business Resources
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