The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO or Office) is proposing to amend the rules of practice to require a third party request for ex parte reexamination to include a statement by the third party requester identifying all real parties in interest to the ex parte reexamination request. This statement would be kept confidential upon request. This proposed requirement would provide the Office with a mechanism to evaluate statutory estoppel provisions. It would also enhance the Office's ability to respond to false certifications, misrepresentations, and fraud.
Comments close Aug 21, 2026
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO or Office) is proposing to amend the Rules of Practice in Patent Cases to require patent applicants and patent owners whose domicile is not located within the United States (U.S.) or its territories (hereinafter foreign applicants/inventors and patent owners) to be represented by a registered patent practitioner. A requirement that foreign applicants/ inventors and patent owners be represented by a registered patent practitioner would bring the United States in line with most other countries that require that such parties be represented by a licensed or registered person of that country. Additionally, this requirement would increase efficiency and enable the USPTO to more effectively use available mechanisms to enforce compliance by all foreign applicants/ inventors and patent owners with U.S. statutory and regulatory requirements in patent matters, and enhance the USPTO's ability to respond to false certifications, misrepresentations, and fraud.
Comments close Jan 28, 2026
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is extending the comment period for the proposed rule titled "Revision to Rules of Practice before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board" that was published in the Federal Register on October 17, 2025. The proposed rule's comment period is extended until December 2, 2025.
Comments close Dec 2, 2025
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO or Office) proposes modifications to the rules of practice for inter partes review (IPR) before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB or Board) that the Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of USPTO and, by delegation, the PTAB will use in instituting IPR.
Comments close Nov 17, 2025
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO or Office) issues this final rule to effectuate a nomenclature change by substituting generic terminology for references to particular electronic filing systems used to submit correspondence related to international applications originating with the United States under the Protocol Relating to the Madrid Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Marks (Madrid Protocol). This amendment clarifies terminology without changing filing requirements or statutory obligations.
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is revising its practice of requiring additional information for delays in taking certain actions in patent applications and patents from requiring additional information for delays exceeding two years to requiring additional information for delays exceeding one year. This action is being taken to increase certainty and predictability concerning patent rights, and to encourage the timely filing of grantable petitions to revive applications, accept delayed maintenance fee payments, accept delayed priority or benefit claims, and excuse an applicant's failure to act within prescribed time limits in connection with international design applications. In addition, the USPTO is changing the conditions for when the corresponding petition fee is required.
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO or Office) is amending the Rules of Practice in Patent Cases to require patent applicants and patent owners whose domicile is not located within the United States (U.S.) or its territories (hereinafter foreign applicants/inventors and patent owners) to be represented by a registered patent practitioner. A requirement that foreign applicants/ inventors and patent owners be represented by a registered patent practitioner will bring the U.S. in line with most other countries that require that such parties be represented by a licensed or registered person of that country. Additionally, this requirement will increase efficiency and enable the USPTO to more effectively use available mechanisms to enforce compliance by all foreign applicants/inventors and patent owners with U.S. statutory and regulatory requirements in patent matters, and enhance the USPTO's ability to respond to false certifications, misrepresentations, and fraud.
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO or Office) is withdrawing the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) published in the Federal Register on April 19, 2024, to revise the rules of practice for inter partes review (IPR) and post-grant review (PGR) proceedings before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) that the Director and, by delegation, the PTAB use in exercising discretion to institute IPRs and PGRs.
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issues this final rule to incorporate classification changes adopted by the Nice Agreement Concerning the International Classification of Goods and Services for the Purposes of the Registration of Marks (Nice Agreement). These changes are listed in the International Classification of Goods and Services for the Purposes of the Registration of Marks (Nice Classification), which is published by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), and will become effective on January 1, 2026.
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) previously suspended expedited examination of design applications effective April 17, 2025. Further to the suspension, the USPTO hereby amends the Rules of Practice in Patent Cases by removing the provisions in the Code of Federal Regulations that provide for expedited examination of design applications. The removal of those regulations supports the USPTO's efforts to reduce the pendency of unexamined design applications, which will benefit all design patent applicants. The removal also facilitates the USPTO's efforts to address the problem of erroneous micro entity certifications, as well as the USPTO's broader efforts to mitigate and protect against threats to the intellectual property system.
The Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (AIA) includes provisions for prioritized examination of patent applications. Those provisions have been implemented by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in previous rulemakings. The AIA provides that the USPTO may not accept more than 10,000 requests for prioritization in any fiscal year (October 1 to September 30) until regulations setting another limit are prescribed. In 2019 and 2021, the USPTO published interim rules that expanded the limit on the number of requests to 12,000 and 15,000, respectively. The current final rule further expands the availability of prioritized examination by increasing the limit on the number of prioritized examination requests that may be accepted in a fiscal year to 20,000.
In order to efficiently allocate examination-related resources to address pendency, and in view of the low number of requests for Accelerated Examination and the availability of a statutory program to expedite the prosecution of applications (Track One, prioritized examination), the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is discontinuing the Accelerated Examination program for utility applications. The USPTO is also modifying the rules of practice to clarify the grounds for which a petition to make special may be granted and when a fee is required for such petition.
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issues this final rule to implement an amendment to the Regulations under the Protocol Relating to the Madrid Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Marks (Madrid Protocol) adopted by the Madrid Union Assembly that went into effect on February 1, 2021, with a delayed implementation date of February 1, 2025. This final rule modifies U.S. trademark regulations addressing the replacement of a national registration or registrations by an international registration to allow for submission of partial replacement requests, in alignment with the Madrid Protocol, and to require a listing of the goods and/or services for which replacement is requested.
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is correcting nonsubstantive errors in the preamble and regulatory text of a final rule that appeared in the Federal Register on November 18, 2024. That final rule set or adjusted trademark fees as authorized by the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (AIA), as amended by the Study of Underrepresented Classes Chasing Engineering and Science Success Act of 2018 (SUCCESS Act). This action is necessary to address potential confusion for impacted entities that could result if these errors are not corrected. These corrections do not result in any substantive changes to the final rule.
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is correcting several minor typographical and other nonsubstantive inadvertent errors in the preamble and amendatory instructions to a final rule that appeared in the Federal Register on November 20, 2024. That final rule set or adjusted patent fees as authorized by the Leahy- Smith America Invents Act (AIA), as amended by the Study of Underrepresented Classes Chasing Engineering and Science Success Act of 2018 (SUCCESS Act). These corrections do not result in any substantive changes to the final rule.
