The expansion of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to the West Coast is fast approaching, with the new USPTO satellite office
opening in the spring of 2015 in Silicon Valley. Until recently, if you
wanted to visit the USPTO, you had to travel to our headquarters in
Alexandria, Virginia. Businesses and entrepreneurs in Fremont
and the surrounding area will be pleased to know that the satellite
office will offer many of the public services currently offered on the
East Coast.

The strategy of satellite offices is, in part, to
bring awareness and resources to applicants in a more geographically
diverse area. The USPTO conducted a 500-city search to host the
satellite offices. Four cities, including Detroit (already open), Denver
(opening this summer), Dallas, and Silicon Valley were selected as
locations for expansion. The satellite offices will serve as hubs of
outreach and education across these regions and will also enable the
USPTO to attract high caliber candidates to help tackle our inventory of
patent applications, appeals, and trials. These offices also give the
USPTO an important presence in every time zone and major industrial hub
across the United States.

The Silicon Valley office, which will be located in the wing of the San Jose City Hall facing North 4th Street, will offer the public:

  • Walk-in services to obtain information on patents and trademarks
  • A regional focus for workshops, conferences and roundtables
  • Workstations to search patent and trademark databases
  • A
    hearing room to host Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) proceedings
    and where applicants can participate remotely in patent and trademark
    hearings taking place in Alexandria or at one of the other satellite
    offices
  • Interview rooms to facilitate communications between
    applicants in the region and patent examiners working in Alexandria and
    across the country
  • Office hours for strategic partners like the Small Business Development Centers (SBDCs) and the Export Assistance Center

According
to Michelle K. Lee, deputy director of the USPTO, “These satellite
offices are critically important to the regional IP communities, and
getting all of them operating at full strength is one of our major
priorities as an agency.”

We encourage entrepreneurs to learn
about intellectual property (IP) early on in their ventures and file for
IP protection as soon as possible. It’s important for all innovations.
Our fees are also much more reasonable than many realize – beginning at
$275 for an application for registration of a trademark filed
electronically. Patent application fees are multi-tiered so that small
businesses and micro entities pay less. The smallest of enterprises that
qualify as a micro entity
will pay only $65 to file a provisional application, and their total
filing, search and examination fees for a utility patent application are
only $400.

While our permanent facility at City Hall in downtown
San Jose won’t open until this time next year, we are not waiting until
then to reach out to the community. In fact, we have been actively
engaged in the region for more than a year out of temporary quarters in
the Menlo Park area. We offer many resources for entrepreneurs and small
businesses to learn about patent filing and intellectual property
rights, from Saturday seminars to computer-based learning on our website
as well as hands-on workshops. Check our events website or our regional site for upcoming events and programs.

The
USPTO is recognized as a leading federal employer, and we have recently
been designated as the best of “The Best Places to Work in the Federal
Government®” by the Partnership for Public Service out of 300 federal
agency subcomponents. Our temporary location is currently home to a
growing number of PTAB judges who are spectacular additions to the
Board, and we continue our search for additional high caliber candidates
to join the team. In its first year of operation, the permanent Silicon
Valley office will have around 110 employees, with 80 patent examiners,
at least 20 PTAB judges along with a support team. Our search for
patent examiners in our permanent facility will begin in early 2015.

If
you would like to learn more about our services across the region,
please contact us at 571-272-3100 or email SiliconValley@uspto.gov.

Initial rendering of the 1st floor outreach space in San Jose, Ca.