Electronic Filing System of the
United States Patent and Trademark Office
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is an List of federal agencies in the United States, agency in the United States Department of Commerce, U.S. Department of Commerce that serves as the national patent office and trademark ...
(USPTO), also referred to as EFS-Web or simply EFS, was a web-based system for submitting
patent
A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an sufficiency of disclosure, enabling discl ...
applications and related documents electronically.
All users could file new applications for
accelerated examination,
design patents
In the United States, a design patent is a form of legal protection granted to the ornamental design of an article of manufacture. Design patents are a type of industrial design right. Ornamental designs of jewelry, furniture, beverage containers ...
, design patent
reissue
In the music industry, a reissue (also re-release, repackage or re-edition) is the release of an album or single which has been released at least once before, sometimes with alterations or additions.
Reasons for reissue
New audio formats
Reco ...
s,
international applications for filing in the US receiving office,
provisional application
A provisional application is a patent application filed at the intellectual property offices of some countries. It does not mature into an issued patent and is deemed abandoned one year after its filing. It is used to secure a filing date for ...
s,
reexamination
In United States patent law, a reexamination is a process whereby anyone—third party or inventor—can have a U.S. patent reexamined by a patent examiner to verify that the subject matter it claims is patentable. To have a patent reexamined, ...
requests,
utility patent
This is a list of legal terms relating to patents and patent law. A patent is not a right to practice or use the invention claimed therein, but a territorial right to exclude others from commercially exploiting the invention, granted to an inven ...
s under 35 U.S.C. § 111(a), utility patent reissues, U.S. National Stage applications under 35 U.S.C. § 371, ASCII text files (for sequence listings, computer listings, mega tables, mathematical formulae, chemical formulae, and 3D protein crystal structures), and petitions under 37 C.F.R. § 1.378(c). Applications must be in
PDF
Portable document format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe Inc., Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, computer hardware, ...
format.
Users who have registered could also file follow-on documents and/or fees for previously filed applications, and pre-grant publications.
After filing via EFS, users were sent an electronic receipt that acknowledges the submission date. Submissions are available for viewing on
Private PAIR within hours of submission.
EFS was retired after November 8, 2023, in favor of the USPTO
Patent Center.
EFS-Web and Private PAIR to be retired
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See also
* epoline, a set of web-based computer programs and services operated by the European Patent Office (EPO)
References
EFS-Web help (USPTO)
External links
United States patent law
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