http://www.uspto.gov/ (World Wide Web Directory, 06/1995)

Welcome to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office

[``Since 1790, the Patent and Trademark Office has existed to bring to the
public the ideas of creators who have been able to think the previously
unthinkable.'']

Newcomers to Intellectual Property may wish to peruse our online publications, including two PTO pamphlets containing general information about Patents and Trademarks. The Copyright Office, which is under the Library of Congress, provides similar information on copyrights. You may also wish to browse through speeches and press releases at the Patent Office.

PTO Collaborative Projects

Visit this link to see the fruits of our efforts with the Clearinghouse for Networked Information Discovery and Retrieval (CNIDR), the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), ATT, and the Government Open Systems Solutions Council (GOSS). These pages contain links to various demonstration projects, including a searchable database of AIDS related Patents.

What's New! Current Announcements and Pending Public Hearings

Here you will find the Federal Register Notices pertaining to the Proposed Utility Examination Guidelines.
A searchable index of the Trademark Acceptable Identification of Goods and Services Manual
Trademarks INTA/PTO Roundtable Discussion of October 4, 1994
Trademark Petitions Information Sheet

The Annual Report of the Commissioner for Fiscal Year 1993

The Commissioner's Annual Report for 1993 is now available in Adobe's PDF format, including all figures and graphs. We also provide the Acrobat Reader v2.0 (the free PDF viewer software from Adobe) for downloading, in versions for Microsoft Windows and the Macintosh.

Intellectual Property and the National Information Infrastructure

The Working Group on Intellectual Property Rights, which is chaired by PTO Commissioner Bruce A. Lehman, was established within the Information Policy Committee of the Information Infrastructure Task Force (IITF) to examine the intellectual property implications of the National Information Infrastructure. The group has released a Preliminary Draft Report, available for downloading in several common microcomputer formats.

Information on Important Patent Law Changes

On December 8, 1994, President Clinton signed into law the Uruguay Round Agreements Act. This Act made several significant changes to U.S. patent law. Information is available that explains the changes to the US Patent Law made through the Uruguay Round Agreements Act, including:

Final Rule Publication: Changes to Implement 20-Year Patent Term and Provisional Applications
An overview
Patent section of the Uruguay Round Agreements Act
Notice annoucing proposed rule changes to implement the Act
A slide presentation and a paper that explain the changes to US law
A list of commonly asked questions with answers

During 1994 and 1995, the PTO held public hearings on the topics of Commercial Security on the National Information Infrastructure, Biotechnology, Software-Related Inventions Protection, 18-month Publication of Patent Applications, and 20 Year Patent Term and Provisional Applications. The transcripts and comments from these hearings are available.

Job Announcements

The weekly job announcements will resume shortly.

For Further Information

Further information about PTO services can be found on our BBS, which is accessible via telnet to fedworld.gov or dial-up at (703) 305-8950.

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We offer weekly statistics on the use of the PTO web server.

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Last Modified: April 1995