The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) announces, effective October 1, 2008, new weekly issues or publications of Bibliographic information are available for download via HTTPS.  The Electronic Information Products – Sales Order Management System (EIPweb/SOMS) Catalog located at https://EIPweb.uspto.gov/SOMS contains new and improved naming formats along with enhanced conventions.

The FTP version of these files (containing the old naming formats and conventions) may be obtained through the anonymous FTP server at ftp://ftp.uspto.gov/pub/patdata/ for a limited time. Access to the Bibliographic information through the new catalog requires no registration.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) announces Trademark bulk data at lower cost. Effective January 1, 2008, the USPTO changed its distribution model for Trademark bulk data by eliminating all charges for downloadable daily files and reducing the price of retrospective data distributed on optical disc. For more information, click here .

Free public training is available in the following electronic search tools:

• Examiner Assisted Search Tool (EAST) - EAST supports the search and retrieval of the full-text and images of US patents since 1971 and US patent application publications since March 15, 2001
• Web-Based Examiner Search Tool (WEST) - WEST supports the search and retrieval of the full-text and images of US patents since 1971 and US patent application publications since March 15, 2001
• Trademark X-Search - X-Search is an automated search and retrieval system for U.S. Trademark text and/or designs

Training is provided in the Public Search Facility at the USPTO Campus in Alexandria, VA. For more information about training sessions and to view a schedule of upcoming training, click here .

Public Users Meetings are held monthly to discuss items of interest to users of the public search facilites.

• Read the minutes from the most recent meeting
• See a schedule of upcoming meetings

The Patent Technology Monitoring Bureau (PTMB) periodically issues general statistics and miscellaneous reports that profile patenting activity at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Most PTMB reports are free while some other products and services are available at reasonable cost.

Calendar year 2006 updates are posted on the USPTO web site. Contact EIPD to receive the following reports via email:

• U.S. Patent Statistics Report
• All Technologies ( Utility Patents ) Report
• Design Patents Report
• Plant Patents Report
• All Patents, All Types Report
• Patent Counts, Single Year Reports, 2006
• Patent Counts by Country/State and Year, Utility Patents Report
• Patent Counts by Country/State and Year, All Patents, All Types Report

For a detailed description of the products and services available from PTMB, please consult the PTMB Products and Services Brochure .

• A publication schedule of Cassis optical disc products is now available online
• Status Reports for Red Book ICE (Patent Grants and Patent Applications) are available on the web site.

The Patent Data FTP Directory contains raw patent data for each weekly issue from 1996 through the current week's issue. Data are available for free downloads.

Patent Grant Bibliographic Data file/XML file name formats have changed from yyweeknnrb.rpt .txt .zip to ipgbyymmdd.rpt .txt .zip. Patent Application Bibliographic Data/XML file name formats have changed from pabyymmdd.rpt .txt .zip to ipabyymmdd.rpt .txt .zip .