View Rule

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO or Office) is revising the rules of practice to implement electronic patent publication. Under the rule changes, letters patents and reexamination certificates would be issued through the Patent Application Image Retrieval (PAIR) system rather than mailed to the correspondence address of record. The rule change would also provide that patentees who wish to receive a paper copy or multiple paper copies of their letters patent from the Office by mail may request a paper letters patent copy(ies) for a fee for each copy requested.