January 2, 1975 ; 42 years ago( 1975-01-02 )Washington, D.C., U.S.
"The Congress shall have Power...To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries".
The USPTO is headquartered at the Alexandria Campus, consisting of 11 buildings in a city-like development surrounded by ground floor retail and high rise residential buildings between the Metro stations of King Street station and Eisenhower Avenue station where the actual Alexandria Campus is located between Duke Street (on the North) to Eisenhower Avenue (on the South), and between John Carlyle Street (on the East) to Elizabeth Lane (on the West) in Alexandria, Virginia.    An additional building in Arlington, Virginia, was opened in 2009.
Patent examiners make up the bulk of the employees at USPTO. They are generally newly graduated scientists and engineers, recruited from various universities around the nation. They hold degrees in various scientific disciplines, but who do not necessarily hold law degrees. Unlike patent examiners, trademark examiners must be licensed attorneys. All examiners work under a strict, "count"-based production system.  For every application, "counts" are earned by composing, filing, and mailing a first office action on the merits, and upon disposal of an application.
Prior to 2012, decisions of patent examiners may be appealed to the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences, an administrative law body of the USPTO. Decisions of the BPAI could further be appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, or a civil suit may be brought against the Commissioner of Patents in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. The United States Supreme Court may ultimately decide on a patent case. Similarly, decisions of trademark examiners may be appealed to the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, with subsequent appeals directed to the Federal Circuit, or a civil action may also be brought.
The USPTO's free distribution service only distributes the patent documents as a set of TIFF files.  Numerous free and commercial services provide patent documents in other formats, such as Adobe PDF and CPC.
, "Space vehicle propelled by the pressure of inflationary vacuum state", describes an anti-gravity device. In November 2005, the USPTO was criticized by physicists for granting it. The journal Nature first highlighted this patent issued for a device that presumably amounts to a perpetual motion machine, defying the laws of physics.     The device comprises a particular electrically superconducting shield and electromagnetic generating device. The examiner allowed the claims because the design of the shield and device was novel and not obvious.  In situations such as this where a substantial question of patentability is raised after a patent issues, the Commissioner of the Patent Office can order a reexamination of the patent.
The USPTO has been criticized for taking an inordinate amount of time in examining patent applications. This is particularly true in the fast-growing area of business method patents. As of 2005, patent examiners in the business method area were still examining patent applications filed in 2001.
The delay was attributed by spokesmen for the Patent Office to a combination of a sudden increase in business method patent filings after the 1998 State Street Bank decision, the unfamiliarity of patent examiners with the business and financial arts (e.g., banking, insurance, stock trading etc.), and the issuance of a number of controversial patents (e.g., " Amazon one click patent ") in the business method area.
December 2012 data showed that there was 597,579 unexamined patent application backlog.  During the four years since 2009, more than 50% reduction was achieved. First action pendency was reported as 19.2 months.
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"Patent office filters out worst telework abuses in report to its watchdog"
"A Four Part Series on Open Notebook Science (Part 4)"
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"USPTO Performance and Accountability Report Fiscal Year 2009"
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"Executive Biography for Margaret A. Focarino"
"Office of the Commissioner for Patents"
"Patent Performance for the year 2006"
"USPTO Performance and Accountability Report Fiscal Year 2007"
"USPTO Performance and Accountability Report Fiscal Year 2008"
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"Patent Academy Closing, USPTO Budget Crisis Deepening?"
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"An Interview with the Acting Commissioner for Patents"
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"Records of the Patent and Trademark office"
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