By Godson Umejiego, Bureau Chief, The Americas

To modernize the electronic Office (e-Office) action process and further streamline its service delivery processes, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is beginning its transition to the Patent Center e-Office Action programme.

 Implementation of the Patent Center e-Office Action programme is another step in the USPTO’s transition to Patent Center, a more modern, user-friendly system that provides improved system performance and a more intuitive user experience. Once fully implemented, the Patent Center e-Office Action programme will replace the existing e-Office Action programme available to users of the Private Patent Application Information Retrieval system.

In addition, the Patent Center e-Office Action programme offers a new option for users to receive courtesy postcards by email (e-postcards) as a reminder that there are available USPTO communications that have not been viewed or downloaded. The USPTO is implementing the e-postcard option based on feedback from customers, particularly to reduce paper consumption and mitigate the impact of potential postal delays. The USPTO seeks public comments on eliminating the postal postcard for all Patent Center e-Office Action programme users in the future.