United States Patent and Trademark Office
(Redirected from United States Patent Office)
Categories: United States intellectual property law | Trademark law | Patent law | United States Department of Commerce
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (PTO or USPTO) is an agency in the United States Department of Commerce that provides patent and trademark protection to inventors and businesses for their inventions and corporate and product identification.The PTO is currently based in Alexandria, Virginia, after a recent 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.
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Mission
- 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.
Fee diversion
Each year, Congress "diverts" fees that the USPTO has collected to the general treasury. In effect, this takes monies collected from the patent system to use for the general budget of the United States. This fee diversion is controversial to patent practitioners, who would rather use the funds to improve the patent office and patent system. However, as the commissioner of the USPTO is a politicial appointee, the diversion of fees is always internally supported.
Patents
- Each year, the PTO issues thousands of patents to companies and individuals all around the world. As of August 2004, the PTO has issued nearly 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 ending in "X" to distinguish them from those issued after the fire.
- On July 31, 1790 the PTO awarded its first patent to Samuel Hopkins for an improvement "in the making Pot ash and Pearl ash by a new Apparatus and Process."
Patent attorney, agent registration
The PTO only allows certain qualified persons to practice before the PTO, which includes the filing of patent applications on behalf of inventors, the prosecuting patent applications on behalf of inventors, and participating in administrative appeals and other proceedings before the quasi-legal PTO examiners and boards. The PTO sets its own standards for who may practice and requires that any person who practices become registered. An USPTO-registered non-attorney professional is called a patent agent and an USPTO-registered attorney is called a patent attorney. In order to become either, an applicant must demonstrate to the USPTO's statisfaction certain scientific and technical competencies and then pass a difficult USPTO-administered examination called the USPTO Registration Examination, which covers the voluminous regulations and procedures that govern USPTO practice. The registration process is managed by the USPTO's Office of Enrollment & Discipline (OED).[1]
An individual inventor may file and prosecute pro se a patent and does not need to be a registered pattent attorney or agent to do so on his own behalf. It is not uncommon for individual inventors to file their own patents to save thousands of dollars in attorneys fees. There are many self-help books in publication explaining how to file your own patent.
See also
External links
- USPTO
- Patent Office Pony (ISBN 1887901132), a history of the early years of the PTO
- References for PTO History
- Delphion's Gallery of Obscure Patents
- Patently Silly website