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, currently based in the Crystal City area of Arlington, Virginia, will complete a move to consolidated offices in Alexandria, Virginia by 2005.
Since 1991, the office has been fully funded by fees charged for processing patents and trademarks.
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.
The United States Patent and TrademarkOffice (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 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 preparation of an application for patent and the conducting of the proceedings in the Patent and TrademarkOffice to obtain the patent is an undertaking requiring the knowledge of patent law and Patent and TrademarkOffice practice as well as knowledge of the scientific or technical matters involved in the particular invention.
The patent is issued in the name of the United States under the seal of the Patent and TrademarkOffice, and is either signed by the Commissioner of Patents and Trademarks or has his name written thereon and attested by an Office official.
Patents may be owned jointly by two or more persons as in the case of a patent granted to joint inventors, or in the case of the assignment of a part interest in a patent.
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