The
USPTO will have a series of upcoming outages to begin the phased
termination of Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) certificates for
Electronic Filing System-Web (EFS-Web) and Private Patent Application
Information Retrieval (PAIR). This will not affect users accessing
EFS-Web and Private PAIR with a verified USPTO.gov account.
The
first PKI outage will be on May 22, starting at 12:01 AM and ending at
11:59 PM ET. Additional outages will be scheduled. Please see the USPTO System Status and Availability page for more information.
During
the PKI outage, users will be unable to use PKI certificates to
authenticate. However, authentication via verified USPTO.gov accounts to
access EFS-Web and Private PAIR
will be available. Please ensure that you migrated the proper PKI to
the correct USPTO.gov account prior to the outage. If you have not
migrated or need to sponsor support staff, please visit the Authentication Change webpage for guidance.
If you need to file a new application during this outage, please access EFS-Web with your verified USPTO.gov account, use EFS-Web for Unregistered eFilers, or use EFS-Web Contingency. If you need to file a follow-on submission and do not have a verified USPTO.gov account, please use an alternative filing method.
If you have questions or need to reverse an incorrectly migrated account, please contact the Patent Electronic Business Center (EBC) at ebc@uspto.gov or 866-217-9197.