PATENT CENTER TRANSITION: Effective November 8, the USPTO’s Patent Center system will fully replace the EFS-Web system and the Private Patent Application Information Retrieval (Private PAIR) tool for the electronic filing and management of patent applications. The transition to the Patent Center system is essential to ensure that USPTO tools continue to meet and evolve with user needs for patent application filing and retrieval. 

SEARCH PRODUCT IMPROVEMENTS: The USPTO is constantly improving and updating its search tools. The agency will soon announce more details on the beta launch of a new trademark search tool that will replace the Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS) later this year. The USPTO will provide demos and trainings on this new system, and encourage customer feedback.

The beta release of the new www.uspto.gov search tool was announced in May, improving how visitors find information on the website using the search bar that appears at the top of most webpages. In addition to new filtering options for search results, it also clearly directs customers to USPTO IP databases, which are separate search tools customers use to look up patent and trademark information.