Patent Law Practice Center

USPTO Proposes Electronic Sharing with Foreign Offices

The electronic sharing of information and documents between intellectual property (IP) offices is critical for increasing the efficiency and quality of patent examination worldwide. Due to the confidential nature of unpublished U.S. patent applications, set forth in 35 U.S.C. 122, an applicant must provide the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) written authority in accordance with 37 CFR 1.14 to grant a foreign IP office access to an unpublished U.S. patent application. With this grant of authority, the Office may electronically provide the U.S. patent application-as-filed or the requested file contents, such as information and documents, from the U.S. patent application to the foreign IP office on behalf of the applicant.

To facilitate electronic file sharing between IP offices, such as the sharing relating to the priority document exchange (PDX) program and the program by which U.S. search results are delivered to the European Patent Office (EPO), USPTO is proposing to amend its rules of practice to include a specific provision by which an applicant can authorize the USPTO to give a foreign IP office access to all or part of the file contents of an unpublished U.S. patent application. This would satisfy a requirement for information imposed on a counterpart application filed with the foreign intellectual property office.

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