Patent Center to Fully Replace Legacy Public Pair System This Summer

Beginning August 1, 2022, the USPTO’s Patent Center system—available to the public since 2017—will fully replace the legacy Public Patent Application Information Retrieval (Public PAIR) tool for the electronic filing and management of patent applications. The Public PAIR tool, first launched in the early 2000s, will be officially retired on July 31, 2022.

“We are committed to providing our users with reliable tools that offer the best experience possible,” said Kathi Vidal, Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO. “As America’s Innovation Agency, our systems need to be nimble, intuitive, and seamless for our users. Not only are we dedicated to improving Patent Center, but we are also focused on examining all our systems to ensure that they meet the high-quality standards that our users deserve. This is the first step.”

Since its initial launch five years ago, the newer system has undergone rigorous user testing and iterative improvements, based largely on the public’s input. USPTO will continue to use the feedback received from stakeholder listening sessions, Patent Center training programs, and other events to further refine Patent Center to meet users’ needs. Stakeholders with suggestions and ideas for improvements are encouraged to contact emod@uspto.gov.

In addition to providing improved system performance and a more intuitive user experience, Patent Center incorporates all the existing functions of Public PAIR, as well as several enhanced features that allow users to: 

• Search publicly available information as a guest by application, patent, Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), publication, and/or international design registration number    
• Sort documents and transaction history based on column headings  
• Perform a quick document preview  
• Download multiple documents at once within a single PDF file or in a ZIP file (new)  
• Download patent references (new)  
• Download documents in DOCX and XML formats (new)  
• Download bibliographic information in XML format (new)