¶ 7.82.03    How To Obtain Copies of U.S. Patents and U.S. Patent Application Publications

In June 2004, the USPTO ceased mailing paper copies of cited U.S. patents and U.S. patent application publications with all Office actions. See "USPTO to Provide Electronic Access to Cited U.S. Patent References with Office Actions and Cease Supplying Paper Copies," 1282 OG 109 (May 18, 2004). Foreign patent documents and non-patent literature will continue to be provided to the applicant on paper.

All U.S. patents and U.S. patent application publications are available free of charge from the USPTO website (www.uspto.gov/patft/index.html), for a fee from the Office of Public Records (http://ebiz1.uspto.gov/oems25p/index.html), and from commercial sources. Copies are also available at the Patent and Trademark Resource Centers (PTRCs). A list of the PTRCs may be found on the USPTO website (www.uspto.gov/products/library/ptdl/locations/index.jsp). Additionally, a feature of the Office’s Private Patent Application Information Retrieval system (PAIR), E-Patent Reference, permits downloading and printing of U.S. patents and U.S. patent application publications cited in U.S. Office Actions.

STEPS TO USE THE E-PATENT REFERENCE FEATURE

Access to Private PAIR is required to utilize E-Patent Reference. If you do not already have access to Private PAIR, the Office urges practitioners and applicants not represented by a practitioner to: (1) obtain a verified USPTO.gov account; (2) obtain a USPTO customer number; (3) associate all of their pending and new application filings with their customer number; (4) install free software (supplied by the Office) required to access Private PAIR and the E-Patent Reference; and (5) make appropriate arrangements for Internet access.

Instructions for performing the 5 steps:

Step 1: Full instructions for obtaining a verified USPTO.gov account are available at the Office’s Electronic Business Center (EBC) web page (www.uspto.gov/ebc/downloads.html). Note that a notarized signature is required on the Patent Electronic System Verification Form.

Step 2: To get a Customer Number, download and complete the Customer Number Request form, PTO/SB/125, from the USPTO website (www.uspto.gov/web/forms/sb0125.pdf). The completed form can be transmitted by facsimile to the Patent Electronic Business Center at (571) 273-0177, or mailed to the address on the form. If you are a registered attorney or agent, your registration number must be associated with your customer number. This association is accomplished by adding your registration number to the Customer Number Request form.

Step 3: A description of associating a customer number with the correspondence address of an application is described at the EBC Web page (www.uspto.gov/ebc/registration_pair.html).

Step 4: The software for electronic filing is available for downloading at www.uspto.gov/ebc. Users can also contact the EFS Help Desk at (571) 272-4100 and request a copy of the software on compact disc. Users will also need Adobe Acrobat Reader, which is available through a link from the USPTO website.

Step 5: Internet access will be required which applicants may obtain through a supplier of their own choice. As images of large documents must be downloaded, high-speed Internet access is recommended.

The E-Patent Reference feature is accessed using a button on the Private PAIR screen. Ordinarily all of the cited U.S. patent and U.S. patent application publication references will be available over the Internet using the Office’s new E-Patent Reference feature. The size of the references to be downloaded will be displayed by E-Patent Reference so the download time can be estimated. Applicants and registered practitioners can select to download all of the references or any combination of cited references. Selected references will be downloaded as complete documents in Portable Document Format (PDF). The downloaded documents can be viewed and printed using commercially available software, such as ADOBE® READER®. ADOBE® READER® is available free of charge from Adobe Systems Incorporated (www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readermain.html).

Examiner Note:

This form paragraph is recommended for use in Office actions citing U.S. patents or U.S. patent application publications when the applicant is not represented by a registered patent attorney or a registered patent agent.