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What is the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office?
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) is a noncommercial federal organization governed by the U.S. Department of Commerce. The PTO is staffed with more than 6,000 full-time employees in facilities comprising over 1.4 million square feet in Arlington, Virginia. Established by the U.S. Constitution, the PTO's basic role is to promote the progress of science and technology by temporarily granting inventors an exclusive right to their inventions (in exchange for the inventors' public disclosure of the inventions). Currently, the PTO receives more than 300,000 patent applications per year.
Although noncommercial, the PTO currently operates much like a private business. It provides products and services to customers in exchange for fees, which are, in turn, used to fund all operations. The PTO examines applications and grants patents on properly entitled inventions; it publishes and disseminates patent information; records assignments (ownership) of patents; and maintains search files and a search room of patents that have been issued, available for public use. The PTO also performs similar functions relating to trademarks.
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