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Patent Law: USPTO Regulations

United States Patent and Trademark Office

Related Research Guides

Other Sources

Federal Register Notices

New and proposed rules are published in the Federal Register. Patent and trademark notices from 1997 can be found on the USPTO website, and a complete database of Federal Register Notices is available at http://www.regulations.gov.

Manual of Patent Examining Procedure (8th ed. 2005). [KF 3120.A4 2010. Also available on HeinOnline and the USPTO website.]

Intended to "provide ... patent examiners, applicants, attorneys, agents, and representatives of applicants with a reference work on the practices and procedures relative to the prosecution of patent applications before the USPTO."       

Official Gazette [Available on the USPTO website.]

The official weekly journal of the USPTO. Changes to the rules are featured in the Notices section.

Patent Office Rules and Practice (1971). [General Collections KF 3120.A6 H6. Also available on LexisNexis.]

In addition to the Manual of Patent Examining Procedure, this set contains four volumes of patent forms (current through December 2011).

Published Regulations

Regulations of the United States Patent and Trademark Office are published in Title 37 of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). The print edition of the CFR is available in the U.S. Reference section on the first floor of the library. Electronic versions are available through the following sources: