17 Facts About USPTO

The USPTO's headquarters are in Alexandria, Virginia, after a 2005 move from the Crystal City area of neighboring Arlington, Virginia.

USPTO is "unique among federal agencies because it operates solely on fees collected by its users, and not on taxpayer dollars".

USPTO cooperates with the European Patent Office and the Japan Patent Office as one of the Trilateral Patent Offices.

The USPTO is a Receiving Office, an International Searching Authority and an International Preliminary Examination Authority for international patent applications filed in accordance with the Patent Cooperation Treaty.

USPTO maintains a permanent, interdisciplinary historical record of all U S patent applications in order to fulfill objectives outlined in the United States Constitution.

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USPTO is headquartered at the Alexandria Campus, consisting of 11 buildings in a city-like development surrounded by ground floor retail and high rise residential buildings between the Metro stations of King Street station and Eisenhower Avenue station where the actual Alexandria Campus is located between Duke Street to Eisenhower Avenue, and between John Carlyle Street to Elizabeth Lane in Alexandria, Virginia.

USPTO was expected by 2014 to open its first ever satellite offices in Detroit, Dallas, Denver, and Silicon Valley to reduce backlog and reflect regional industrial strengths.

In recent years, the USPTO has seen increasing delays between when a patent application is filed and when it issues.

In 2006, USPTO instituted a new training program for patent examiners called the "Patent Training Academy".

In 2016, the USPTO partnered with the Girl Scouts of the USA to create an "Intellectual Property Patch" merit badge, which is awarded to Girl Scouts at four different levels.

USPTO only allows certain qualified persons to practice before the USPTO.

Any person who practices trademark law before the USPTO must be an active member in good standing of the highest court of any state.

USPTO has been criticized for granting patents for impossible or absurd, already known, or arguably obvious inventions.

Economists have documented that, although the USPTO makes mistakes when granting patents, these mistakes might be less prominent than some might believe.

USPTO has been criticized for taking an inordinate amount of time in examining patent applications.

Effective August 2006, the USPTO introduced an accelerated patent examination procedure in an effort to allow inventors a speedy evaluation of an application with a final disposition within twelve months.

In 2012, the USPTO initiated an internal investigation into allegations of fraud by employees taking advantage of its remote work policies.