Filing patent documents

USPTO strongly encourage customers to file via EFS-Web. This online business system is efficient and convenient.

EFS-Web filers:

• EFS-Web for Registered eFilers - Enhanced filing of new patent applications, follow-on submissions, saved submissions, and more.
• EFS-Web for Unregistered eFilers - Basic initial filing of new patent applications. Note: Unregistered eFilers are not permitted to file follow-on submissions/fees in EFS-Web. Unregistered eFilers are advised to pay fees online as part of the initial application submission or use an alternative filing method to pay fees, such as including a deposit account authorization with the application papers or mailing the payment using the Priority Mail Express® service of the United States Postal Service (USPS) in accordance with 37 CFR 1.10.

Filing options:

New patent applications, new international design applications, documents and fees for national stage entry under 35 U.S.C. 371, and documents that are required to establish the filing date of an application (e.g., a missing drawing figure or page of the specification) may be filed (in addition to EFS-Web) by:

• Priority Mail Express® from the USPS in accordance with 37 CFR 1.10, or
• Hand-delivery (37 CFR 1.6(c)) via the customer service window.

Other documents or fee payments may be filed (in addition to EFS-Web) by:

• Facsimile transmission to the USPTO central facsimile at (571) 273-8300,
• First-Class Mail with a certificate of mailing in accordance with 37 CFR 1.8,
• Priority Mail Express® from the USPS in accordance with 37 CFR 1.10, or
• Hand-delivery (37 CFR 1.6(c)) via the customer service window.

Patent correspondence, including new patent applications, new international design applications, and documents or fee payments cannot be submitted via email.

Other forms of delivery, such as UPS and FedEx, may also be used. However, the benefits of 37 CFR 1.8 or 37 CFR 1.10 (best viewed in Internet Explorer) apply only to documents delivered to the office by the USPS.

If you have questions about filing via EFS-Web, please contact the Patent Electronic Business Center (EBC) at ebc@uspto.gov or (866) 217-9197.

Update on USPTO systems status and availability

As you may already know from our previous updates, the USPTO has been performing emergency IT maintenance since Wednesday morning due to an issue with the agency’s PALM database, which affects many of our patent filing and payment systems. This issue stems from an internal systems failure and is not the result of any external causes.

I realize this disruption is inconvenient and frustrating to our customers. With that in mind I am in constant contact with the leadership of Patents and our Patent Trial and Appeal Board about how the systems outage is affecting their customers and the work of our employees.

I am also in constant contact with our acting chief information officer and his team about the around-the-clock work they are doing to restore the full functionality of these systems. At this time it appears that our emergency maintenance will continue into the weekend. Until the issue is resolved we will continue providing updates on the Systems Status and Availability page of our website at 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. ET.

In the meantime, I want to urge those affected to use the alternative filing and payment methods available to our customers. Given the availability of the alternative methods, we do not plan to extend deadlines. We know you have questions about paper filing fees, and we are examining our options to see how we can address those concerns.

Again, I regret the inconvenience and frustration this has caused to our Patents and PTAB customers, and I want to assure you that we are doing our utmost to resolve the issue as soon as possible.

Andrei Iancu

Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO