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  • 21 Aug, 2019

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U.S. Patent Office
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is an agency in the U.S. Department of Commerce that serves as the national patent office and trademark registration authority for the United States. The USPTO's headquarters are in Alexandria, Virginia, after a 2005 move from the Crystal City area of neighboring Arlington, Virginia.

The USPTO is "unique among federal agencies because it operates solely on fees collected by its users, and not on taxpayer dollars". Its "operating structure is like a business in that it receives requests for services—applications for patents and trademark registrations—and charges fees projected to cover the cost of performing the services [it] provide[s]".

The Office is headed by the Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, currently held by Kathi Vidal as of April 19, 2022. Andrei Iancu was the former director of the USPTO until he left office on January 20, 2021.

The USPTO cooperates with the European Patent Office (EPO) and the Japan Patent Office (JPO) as one of the Trilateral Patent Offices. 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 legal basis for the United States patent system is the Copyright Clause in Section 8 of Article I of the U.S. Constitution, which gives Congress the power to grant patents and copyrights on a national basis. Trademark law, on the other hand, is considered to be authorized by the Commerce Clause.

The Congress shall have Power ... To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

The USPTO maintains a permanent, interdisciplinary historical record of all U.S. patent applications in order to fulfill objectives outlined in the United States Constitution. The PTO's mission 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 USPTO is headquartered at the Alexandria Campus, consisting of 11 buildings in a city-like development surrounded by ground floor retail and high rise residential buildings between the Metro stations of King Street station (the main search building is two blocks due south of the King Street station) and Eisenhower Avenue station where the actual Alexandria Campus is located between Duke Street (on the North) to Eisenhower Avenue (on the South), and between John Carlyle Street (on the East) to Elizabeth Lane (on the West) in Alexandria, Virginia. An additional building in Arlington, Virginia, was opened in 2009.

The USPTO was expected by 2014 to open its first ever satellite offices in Detroit, Dallas, Denver, and Silicon Valley to reduce backlog and reflect regional industrial strengths. The first satellite office opened in Detroit on July 13, 2012. In 2013, due to the budget sequestration, the satellite office for Silicon Valley, which is home to one of the nation's top patent-producing cities, was put on hold. However, renovation and infrastructure updates continued after the sequestration, and the Silicon Valley location opened in the San Jose City Hall in 2015.

As of September 30, 2009, the end of the U.S. government's fiscal year, the PTO had 9,716 employees, nearly all of whom are based at its five-building headquarters complex in Alexandria. Of those, 6,242 were patent examiners (almost all of whom were assigned to examine utility patents; only 99 were assigned to examine design patents) and 388 were trademark examining attorneys; the rest are support staff. While the agency has noticeably grown in recent years, the rate of growth was far slower in fiscal 2009 than in the recent past; this is borne out by data from fiscal 2005 to the present: As of the end of FY 2018, the USPTO was composed of 12,579 federal employees, including 8,185 patent examiners, 579 trademark examiners, and 3,815 other staff.

  • USPTO Madison Building Exterior.
    USPTO Madison Building Exterior.
  • Interior atrium of the USPTO Madison Building.
    Interior atrium of the USPTO Madison Building.
  • USPTO satellite office in San Jose, California.
    USPTO satellite office in San Jose, California.
At end of FY Employees Patent examiners Trademark examining attorneys Patent Filings (Utility) Trademark Filings Patent Application Backlog
2023 13,452 8,568 756 594,143 737,018
2022 13,103 8,509 718 457,510 787,798
2021 12,963 8,073 662 650,703 943,928
2020 12,928 8,434 622 653,311 738,112
2019 12,652 9,614 701 666,843 673,233
2018 12,579 8,185 579 647,572 594,107
2017 12,588 8,147 549 650,350 530,270 526,579
2016 12,725 8,351 570 650,411 530,270 537,655
2015 12,667 9,161 456 618,062 503,889 553,221
2014 12,450 9,302 429 618,457 455,017
2013 11,773 8,051 409 601,464 433,654
2012 11,531 7,935 386 565,406 415,026 608,283
2011 10,210 6,780 378 536,604 398,667
2010 9,507 6,225 378 509,367 368,939 726,331
2009 9,716 6,243 388 485,500 352,051 750,596
2008 9,518 6,055 398 495,095 401,392 750,596
2007 8,913 5,477 404 467,243 394,368
2006 4,779 413
2005 4,177 357
2004 3,681 286
2003 3,579 256
1998 5,300
1996 189,979 200,640
1995 221,304 175,307
1994 186,126 155,376
1993 174,553 139,735
1992 172,539 125,237
1986 120,988 69,253
1976 101,807 37,074

Patent examiners make up the bulk of the employees at USPTO. They hold degrees in various scientific disciplines, but do not necessarily hold law degrees. Unlike patent examiners, trademark examiners must be licensed attorneys.

All examiners work under a strict, "count"-based production system. For every application, "counts" are earned by composing, filing, and mailing a first Office action on the merits, and upon disposal of an application.

In 2012, the Commissioner for Patents oversaw three main bodies, headed by the former Deputy Commissioner for Patent Operations, Peggy Focarino, the Deputy Commissioner for Patent Examination Policy, which was held by Andrew Hirshfeld up until 2015, and finally the Commissioner for Patent Resources and Planning, which was vacant at that time. The Patent Operations of the office is divided into nine different technology centers that deal with various arts.

Prior to 2012, decisions of patent examiners could be appealed to the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences, an administrative law body of the USPTO. Decisions of the BPAI could further be appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, or a civil suit could be brought against the Commissioner of Patents in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. The United States Supreme Court may ultimately decide on a patent case. Under the America Invents Act, the BPAI was converted to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board or "PTAB".

Similarly, decisions of trademark examiners may be appealed to the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, with subsequent appeals directed to the Federal Circuit, or a civil action may also be brought.

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. The USPTO hired 1,193 new patent examiners in Fiscal Year 2006 (year ending September 30, 2006), 1,215 new examiners in fiscal 2007, and 1,211 in fiscal year 2008. The USPTO expected to continue hiring patent examiners at a rate of approximately 1,200 per year through 2012; however, due to a slowdown in new application filings since the onset of the late-2000s economic crisis, and projections of substantial declines in maintenance fees in coming years, the agency imposed a hiring freeze in early March 2009.

In 2006, USPTO instituted a new training program for patent examiners called the "Patent 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. Because of the impending USPTO budget crisis previously alluded to, it had been rumored that the academy would be closed by the end of 2009. Focarino, then Acting Commissioner for Patents, denied in a May 2009 interview that the academy was being shut down, but stated that it would be cut back because the hiring goal for new examiners in fiscal 2009 was reduced to 600. Ultimately, 588 new patent examiners were hired in fiscal year 2009.

In 2016, the USPTO partnered with the Girl Scouts of the USA to create an "Intellectual Property Patch" merit badge, which is awarded to Girl Scouts at four different levels.

Management

In October 2021, President Joe Biden nominated attorney Kathi Vidal to serve as the USPTO director. She was sworn in on April 13, 2022. On December 16, 2022, Kathi Vidal announced that Vaishali Udupa, an intellectual property attorney, engineer, and currently a top executive from Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), will join the 13,000-person Department of Commerce agency as the new Commissioner for Patents effective January 17, 2023.

Fee diversion

For many years, Congress has "diverted" about 10% of the fees that the USPTO collected into the general treasury of the United States. In effect, this took money collected from the patent system to use for the general budget. This fee diversion has been generally opposed by patent practitioners (e.g., patent attorneys and patent agents), inventors, the USPTO, as well as former federal judge Paul R. Michel. 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. The last six annual budgets of the George W. Bush administration did not propose to divert any USPTO fees, and the first budget of the Barack Obama administration continued this practice, as well as the second budget of the Trump administration; however, stakeholders continue to press for a permanent end to fee diversion.

The discussion of which party can appropriate the fees is more than a financial question. Patent fees represent a policy lever that influences both the number of applications submitted to the office as well as their quality.

Patents

First United States patent
The National Inventors Hall of Fame is housed in the Madison Building of the USPTO.
  • On July 31, 1790, the first U.S. patent was issued 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.
  • The X-Patents (the first 9,957 (approximately), issued between 1790 and 1836) were destroyed by a fire; fewer than 3,000 of those have been recovered and re-issued with numbers that include an "X". The X generally appears at the end of the numbers hand-written on full-page patent images; however, in patent collections and for search purposes, the X is considered to be the patent type – analogous to the "D" of design patents – and appears at the beginning of the number. The X distinguishes the patents from those issued after the fire, which began again with patent number 1.
  • Each year, the PTO issues over 150,000 patents to companies and individuals worldwide. As of December 2011, the PTO had granted 8,743,423 patents and received 16,020,302 applications.
  • On June 19, 2018, the 10 millionth U.S. patent was issued to Joseph Marron for invention of a "Coherent LADAR [System] Using Intra-Pixel Quadrature Detection" to improve laser detection and ranging (LADAR). The patent was the first to receive the newly redesigned patent cover. It was signed by then-President Donald Trump during a special ceremony at the Oval Office.
  • In February 2024, the USPTO issued a new guideline relating to obtaining a patent as per earlier recommendation by Biden's administration. The guideline states that; to obtain a patent, a real person, not AI, must have made a “significant contribution” to the invention and that only a human being can be named as an inventor on a patent.

List of millionth US Patents

Patents issued under revised numbering scheme of the Patent Act of 1836
Patent Number Patent Title Issue Date Days Since Last
Millionth Issue
1 Traction Wheels July 13, 1836
1,000,000 Vehicle Tire August 8, 1911 27,419
2,000,000 Vehicle Wheel Construction May 12, 1932 7,583
3,000,000 Automatic Reading System May 6, 1955 8,394
4,000,000 Process for Recycling Asphalt-Aggregate Compositions December 28, 1976 7,907
5,000,000 Ethanol Production by Escherichia Coli Strains March 19, 1991 5,194
6,000,000 Extendible Method and Apparatus for Synchronizing Multiple Files on Two Different Computer Systems December 7, 1999 3,185
7,000,000 Polysaccharide Fibers February 14, 2006 2,261
8,000,000 Visual Prosthesis August 16, 2011 2,009
9,000,000 Windshield Washer Conditioner April 7, 2015 1,330
10,000,000 Coherent Ladar Using Intra-Pixel Quadrature Detection June 19, 2018 1,169
11,000,000 Repositioning Wires and Methods for Repositioning Prosthetic Heart Valve Devices within a Heart Chamber May 11, 2021 1,057
12,000,000 Labeled Nucleotide Analogs, Reaction Mixtures, and Methods and System for Sequencing June 4, 2024 1,120

Bar chart

Days since last millionth patent filed at the USPTO

Trademarks

The USPTO examines applications for trademark registration, which can be filed under five different filing bases: use in commerce, intent to use, foreign application, foreign registration, or international registration. If approved, the trademarks are registered on either the Principal Register or the Supplemental Register, depending upon whether the mark meets the appropriate distinctiveness criteria. This federal system governs goods and services distributed via interstate commerce, and operates alongside state level trademark registration systems.

Trademark applications have grown substantially in recent years, jumping from 296,490 new applications in 2000, to 345,000 new applications in 2014, to 458,103 new applications in 2018. Recent growth has been driven partially by growing numbers of trademark applications originating in China; trademark applications from China have grown more than 12-fold since 2013, and in 2017, one in every nine trademark applications reviewed by the U.S. Trademark Office originated in China.

Since 2008, the Trademark Office has hosted a National Trademark Expo every two years, billing it as "a free, family-friendly event designed to educate the public about trademarks and their importance in the global marketplace." The Expo features celebrity speakers such as Anson Williams (of the television show Happy Days) and basketball player Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and has numerous trademark-holding companies as exhibitors. Before the 2009 National Trademark Expo, the Trademark Office designed and launched a kid-friendly trademark mascot known as T. Markey, who appears as an anthropomorphized registered trademark symbol. T. Markey is featured prominently on the Kids section of the USPTO website, alongside fellow IP mascots Ms. Pat Pending (with her robot cat GeaRS) and Mark Trademan.

In 2020, trademark applications marked the sharpest declines and inclines in American history. During the spring, COVID-19 lockdowns led to reduced filings, which then increased in July 2020 to exceed the previous year. August 2020 was subsequently the highest month of trademark filings in the history of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Representation

The USPTO only allows certain qualified persons to practice before the USPTO. Practice includes filing of patent and trademark applications on behalf of individuals and companies, prosecuting the patent and trademark applications, and participating in administrative appeals and other proceedings before the PTO examiners, examining attorneys and boards. The USPTO sets its own standards for who may practice. Any person who practices patent law before the USPTO must become a registered patent attorney or agent. A patent agent is a person who has passed the USPTO registration examination (the "patent bar") but has not passed any state bar exam to become a licensed attorney; a patent attorney is a person who has passed both a state bar and the patent bar and is in good standing as an attorney. A patent agent can only act in a representative capacity in patent matters presented to the USPTO, and may not represent a patent holder or applicant in a court of law. To be eligible for taking the patent bar exam, a candidate must possess a degree in "engineering or physical science or the equivalent of such a degree". Any person who practices trademark law before the USPTO must be an active member in good standing of the highest court of any state.

The United States allows any citizen from any country to sit for the patent bar (if he/she has the requisite technical background). Only Canada has a reciprocity agreement with the United States that confers upon a patent agent similar rights.

An unrepresented inventor may file a patent application and prosecute it on his or her own behalf (pro se). 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 the filing party obtain representation by a registered patent attorney or patent agent. The patent examiner cannot recommend a specific attorney or agent, but the Patent Office does post a list of those who are registered.

While the inventor of a relatively simple-to-describe invention may well be able to produce an adequate specification and detailed drawings, there remains language complexity 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. There is also skill required when searching for prior art that is used to support the application and to prevent applying for a patent for something that may be unpatentable. A patent examiner will make special efforts to help pro se inventors understand the process but the failure to adequately understand or respond to an Office action from the USPTO can endanger the inventor's rights, and may lead to abandonment of the application.

Electronic filing system

The USPTO accepts patent applications filed in electronic form. Inventors or their patent agents/attorneys can file applications as Adobe PDF documents. Filing fees can be paid by credit card or by a USPTO "deposit account".

Patent search tools

The lobby of the Public Search Facility, looking out toward the atrium, inside the Madison Building of the USPTO. The bronze bust of Thomas Jefferson is at the far right. Researchers can access patent search databases within the facility.

The USPTO web site provides free electronic copies of issued patents and patent applications as multiple-page TIFF (graphic) documents. The site also provides Boolean search and analysis tools.

The USPTO's free distribution service only distributes the patent documents as a set of TIFF files. Numerous free and commercial services provide patent documents in other formats, such as Adobe PDF and CPC.

Criticisms

The USPTO has been criticized for granting patents for impossible or absurd, already known, or arguably obvious inventions. Economists have documented that, although the USPTO makes mistakes when granting patents, these mistakes might be less prominent than some might believe.

Controversial patents

  • U.S. patent 5,443,036, "Method of exercising a cat", covers having a cat chase the beam from a laser pointer. The patent has been criticized as being obvious.
  • U.S. patent 6,004,596, "Sealed crustless sandwich", issued in 1999, covers the design of a sandwich with crimped edges. All claims of the patent were canceled by the PTO upon reexamination.
  • U.S. patent 6,025,810, "Hyper-light-speed antenna", an antenna that sends signals faster than the speed of light. According to the description in the patent, "The present invention takes a transmission of energy, and instead of sending it through normal time and space, it pokes a small hole into another dimension, thus, sending the energy through a place which allows transmission of energy to exceed the speed of light."
  • U.S. patent 6,368,227, "Method of swinging on a swing", issued April 9, 2002, was granted to a seven-year-old boy, whose father, a patent attorney, wanted to demonstrate how the patent system worked to his son who was five years old at the time of the application. The PTO initially rejected it due to prior art, but eventually issued the patent. Upon reexamination all claims of the patent were canceled by the PTO.
  • U.S. patent 6,960,975, "Space vehicle propelled by the pressure of inflationary vacuum state", describes an anti-gravity device. In November 2005, the USPTO was criticized by physicists for granting it. The journal Nature first highlighted this patent issued for a device that presumably amounts to a perpetual motion machine, defying the laws of physics. The device comprises a particular electrically superconducting shield and electromagnetic generating device. The examiner allowed the claims because the design of the shield and device was novel and not obvious. In situations such as this where a substantial question of patentability is raised after a patent is issued, the Commissioner of the Patent Office can order a reexamination of the patent.

Controversial trademarks

Slow patent examination and backlog

Main article: Backlog of unexamined patent applications

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 was 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., U.S. patent 5,960,411 "Amazon one click patent") in the business method area.

Effective 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 twelve months. The procedure requires additional information to be submitted with the application and also includes an interview with the examiner. The first accelerated patent was granted on March 15, 2007, with a six-month issuance time.

As of the end of 2008, there were 1,208,076 patent applications pending at the Patent Office. At the end of 1997, the number of applications pending was 275,295. Therefore, over those eleven years there was a 439% increase in the number of pending applications.

December 2012 data showed that there was 597,579 unexamined patent applications in the backlog. During the four years since 2009, more than a 50% reduction was achieved. First action pendency was reported as 19.2 months.

Fraud by remote working employees

In 2012, the USPTO initiated an internal investigation into allegations of fraud by employees taking advantage of its remote work policies. Investigators discovered that some patent examiners had lied about the hours they had worked, but high level officials prevented access to computer records, thus limiting the number of employees who could be punished.

See also

Directors of the USPTO
1. List of people who have headed the United States Patent Office
...
r. Bruce Lehman (1993–1998)
s. Q. Todd Dickinson (1998–2001)
t. James E. Rogan (December 2001 – 2004)
u. Jon Dudas (2004 – January 2009)
v. John J. Doll (January 2009 – August 2009) (acting)
w. David J. Kappos (August 2009 – February 2013)
x. Teresa Stanek Rea (February 2013 – November 21, 2013) (acting)
y. Margaret A. (Peggy) Focarino (November 21, 2013 – January 12, 2014) (by delegation)
z. Michelle K. Lee (January 13, 2014 – June 6, 2017)
aa. Joseph Matal (June 7, 2017 – February 8, 2018) (acting)
bb. Andrei Iancu (February 8, 2018 – January 20, 2021)
cc. Kathi Vidal (2022–present)

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