(408) Notice of Potential Erroneous Release of Patent Application Titles
On February 5, 2024, the United States Patent and Trademark Office
(USPTO) replaced the Electronic Patent Assignment System and the Electronic
Trademark Assignment System with Assignment Center.
Between February 5, 2024 and March 29, 2024, due to a computer
programming error in Assignment Center, the USPTO inadvertently published
non-public patent application titles and numbers that could be viewed
during the recordation process by unauthorized individuals with access to
registered Assignment Center accounts. The software error was first
reproduced by the USPTO on March 28, 2024, and was corrected on March 29,
2024. Only application numbers and titles were disclosed; and it is
important to note that the specifications, drawings, and claims were not
part of the information made available and were not accessed. Moreover, no
inventor or applicant information was identified in the release.
Impacted applicants were notified individually regarding the potential
release of their titles and associated application numbers via the
correspondence address listed in the application (see Manual of Patent
Examining Procedure (9th Edition, Rev. 07.2022) § 601.03), beginning the
week of April 27, 2024. We thoroughly reviewed all searches conducted in
the Assignment Center between February 5, 2024 and March 29, 2024 to
determine which patent application numbers required individual
notifications. The results were cross-referenced with previously published
patent application numbers to determine which non-public applications were
potentially exposed. Notifications were made to all impacted applicants
based on the results of this analysis. Although it is not possible to
determine whether those application titles were viewed by the applicants
themselves or by those individuals without the authority to see the
information, the decision was made out of an abundance of caution to notify
all impacted applicants of the possibility of their titles being accessed
by unauthorized individuals.
Any improper access of the application information between the dates of
February 5, 2024 and March 29, 2024, is not considered a publication of
such applications under 35 U.S.C. 122(b). No rights in United States
patents are threatened by this limited access to unpublished patent
application information. While it is unlikely that the title could disclose
the invention in a way that would constitute patent-defeating prior art in
any jurisdiction, to the extent any issue is raised, the USPTO will assist
applicants by confirming that the disclosure was erroneous and inadvertent.
The USPTO is committed to data security and are taking enhanced steps to
prevent incidents such as this from happening again. The USPTO sincerely
regrets this error and is instituting more testing controls, both manual
and automated testing, to prevent similar processing errors in the future.
Inquiries regarding this matter may be directed to Mark Polutta, Senior
Legal Advisor, at (571) 272-7709 or Andrew St.Clair, Legal Advisor, at
(571) 270-0238, both of the Office of Patent Legal Administration or via
email addressed to Patent.Practice@uspto.gov.
May 17, 2024 KATHERINE K. VIDAL
Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and
Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office
[1523 OG 296]
Top of Notices (408) December 31, 2024