Patent Law Practice Center

New Year, New USPTO Series Code

The USPTO uses series codes to identify when a patent application’s filing date was. It is a two digit code representing a period of time. The series code precedes the rest of the six digit patent application serial number. These numbers are assigned chronologically as they are received at the USPTO.

Any patent applications that will be submitted in 2012 will belong in a new series code number, Series Code 13. Series Code 13 was implemented at the end of 2010, but the first application to be published with the series code 13 didn’t occur until May 2011. What was the patent application for? A light-emitting apparatus:

Can’t you tell from the image above? If not, check out the application here.