Public User's Meeting

Public Records Division (PRD)/Public Search Services Division (PSSD)
Quarterly Public User's Meeting
April 9, 2013

The Public User's Meeting was held at 2:00 p.m. in the Global IP Academy, Madison East, 2nd floor, at 600 Dulany Street on the USPTO campus in Alexandria, Virginia. Martha Sneed, PSSD Director, chaired the meeting. There were nine members of the public in attendance. CIO John Owens was in attendance to field any question/concerns from the public.

Public Search Facility Status

Trademark Official Gazette: The Government Printing Office ceased printing this publication effective with January 2013. December 2012 was the last printed issue.


Trademark Assignment Card Files:
The collection of Trademark Assignment Card Files will be transferred to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) sometime during FY13. These are static files inclusive of 1955 through 1990. Their move to NARA will reunite them with the pre-1955 files so that NARA will have complete holdings. When a date for transfer is known, a notice will be posted in the Public Search Facility. Assignment information after 1990 is in an electronic search system called the Assignment Historical Database (AHD).


Universal Public Workstations (UPWS):
Question: The Foresee Results Survey window is popping up again in UPWS environment.
Answer: Will check on this. (This was subsequently disabled.)

Question: What happened to color highlighting of terms in EAST?
Answer: It was cut, but will be implemented in the new patent examiner search system.

Special Presentation on the Comprehensive Patent Classification (CPC):

Derris Banks, SPE in TC3700, held a Q&A session on the CPC. Information he provided included:

  • USPTO will no longer be classifying by the US Patent Classification System as of December 31, 2014. After that, the USPCS will be static, but still searchable.
  • CPC Field Specific Tools and training modules will be available to the public for the 400+ CPC Fields.
  • CPC data will be added to PubEAST and PubWEST in March 2014.
  • Some CPC schedules and manuals are already available online via USPTO web site.
  • There will be reclassification projects and some are already underway.
  • CPC will be added to back file incrementally.
  • Design classes and plant classes are not changing as they are unique to USPTO.
  • Public comments may be provided through links on USPTO and EPO web sites.
  • The public will have access to foreign patent information of all member states.

Mr. Banks had some questions that could not be answered yet due to the evolving status of CPC implementation. He indicated more status would be available in the June/July timeframe.

Public Records Division Status

There were no questions.

The Public User's Meeting was adjourned at 3:00 p.m.

Next quarterly meeting date TBD.