Status of Office of Public Records Services
The Office of Public Records (OPR) processes and fills orders
for both certified and uncertified copies of Patent and Trademark
Office documents and records assignments and other documents related to
title. This is an update of actual processing times during the month of
March 2001:
Document Services Goal Actual
Processing
Time
Certified Documents Patent
Applications-As-Filed, Expedited 7 days 7 days
Patent Applications-As-Filed, 17 days 16 days
Regular
Patent Related File Wrappers 25 days 62 days*
Patent Copies 10 days 8 days
Patent Assignments 10 days 10 days
Trademark Applications-As-Filed, 7 days 6 days
Expedited
Trademark Applications-As-Filed, 17 days 13 days
Regular
Trademark Related File Wrappers 25 days 29 days*
Trademark Assignments 10 days 10 days
Trademark Registrations, 5 days 6 days
Expedited
Trademark Registrations, Regular 14 days 11 days
Uncertified Documents
Expedited Patent Copies 1 day 1 day
Regular Patent Copies 5 days 6 days
Plant Patents 5 days 19 days
Patent Assignments 10 days 6 days
Patent Related File Wrappers 25 days 33 days*
Expedited Trademark Copies 1 day 2 days
Regular Trademark Copies 5 days 9 days
Trademark Assignments 10 days 11 days
Trademark Related File Wrappers 25 days 23 days*
*Includes turnaround times for files on Official Search and File
Reconstruction.
During the month of March 2001, a total of 13,280 public orders
(22,845 copies) were filled and closed, or 517 orders less (15,711
copies less) than the FY-01 planning number of 13,797 orders (38,556
copies) to be closed for this month.
The office's Order Entry Management System (OEMS) was updated on
March 11, 2001, to accept orders for new products associated with the
publication of patent applications. The new software still has a number
of technical problems that are being analyzed and resolved. As a
result, there have been, and will continue to be, delays in processing
and filling those orders submitted after Thursday, March 7, 2001. All
orders submitted before Tuesday, April 3, 2001, were entered in OEMS as
of Thursday, April 5, 2001. Please do not submit "follow-up"
or duplicate copies of orders. Customers should use the above
actual processing time for each product as a guide as to
when they can expect their orders to be completed. In cases where an
urgent deadline is approaching, contact OPR Customer
Service at (703) 308-9726 or 1(800) 972-6382 for assistance with a
particular order.
Customers are encouraged to fax orders for copies directly to the
Document Services Division at (703) 308-9759 and to pay by PTO Deposit
Account, MasterCard, Visa, American Express or Discover. Copy orders
also may be placed through the Internet by accessing the PTO home page
at www.uspto.gov and selecting the "Order Copies"
option. Information on the status of pending orders may be obtained by
calling (703) 308-9726 or 1 (800) 972-6382 (outside the Washington, DC
Metro area), or via E-mail: dsd@uspto.gov.
ASSIGNMENT SERVICES
The Assignment Division is currently mailing recordation notices
for documents received in the Office of Public Records on January 19,
2001. The cycle time to process, record, and mail notices is 68
calendar days.
April 5, 2001 PATRICK ROWE, Director
Office of Public Records