MPEP § 901.05(c) — Obtaining Copies (Annotated Rules)
§901.05(c) Obtaining Copies
This page consolidates and annotates all enforceable requirements under MPEP § 901.05(c), including statutory authority, regulatory rules, examiner guidance, and practice notes. It is provided as guidance, with links to the ground truth sources. This is information only, it is not legal advice.
Obtaining Copies
This section addresses Obtaining Copies. Contains: 2 permissions and 3 other statements.
Key Rules
Global Dossier Access
Copies of various specifications not included in the search files, whether non-English-language patent documents or documents not printed or available for exchange, may come to the examiner’s attention. For example, they may be cited in a motion to dissolve an interference, be cited by applicants, or turn up in an online search. Upon request, STIC will obtain a copy from its extensive collection, or if necessary, from the patent office of the particular country. In the case of unprinted patent documents, STIC will request that the date of granting and the date the specification was made available to the public be indicated on the copies provided by the country of origin. If the examiner wishes to obtain a copy of a specification from an international application filed under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) or a patent application from a WIPO-CASE participating Office, the Global Dossier Public Access is a tool which provides online access to the file histories of related applications. See MPEP § 901.08 for additional information.
Copies of various specifications not included in the search files, whether non-English-language patent documents or documents not printed or available for exchange, may come to the examiner’s attention. For example, they may be cited in a motion to dissolve an interference, be cited by applicants, or turn up in an online search. Upon request, STIC will obtain a copy from its extensive collection, or if necessary, from the patent office of the particular country. In the case of unprinted patent documents, STIC will request that the date of granting and the date the specification was made available to the public be indicated on the copies provided by the country of origin. If the examiner wishes to obtain a copy of a specification from an international application filed under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) or a patent application from a WIPO-CASE participating Office, the Global Dossier Public Access is a tool which provides online access to the file histories of related applications. See MPEP § 901.08 for additional information.
Copies of various specifications not included in the search files, whether non-English-language patent documents or documents not printed or available for exchange, may come to the examiner’s attention. For example, they may be cited in a motion to dissolve an interference, be cited by applicants, or turn up in an online search. Upon request, STIC will obtain a copy from its extensive collection, or if necessary, from the patent office of the particular country. In the case of unprinted patent documents, STIC will request that the date of granting and the date the specification was made available to the public be indicated on the copies provided by the country of origin. If the examiner wishes to obtain a copy of a specification from an international application filed under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) or a patent application from a WIPO-CASE participating Office, the Global Dossier Public Access is a tool which provides online access to the file histories of related applications. See MPEP § 901.08 for additional information.
Request Content and Form
Copies of various specifications not included in the search files, whether non-English-language patent documents or documents not printed or available for exchange, may come to the examiner’s attention. For example, they may be cited in a motion to dissolve an interference, be cited by applicants, or turn up in an online search. Upon request, STIC will obtain a copy from its extensive collection, or if necessary, from the patent office of the particular country. In the case of unprinted patent documents, STIC will request that the date of granting and the date the specification was made available to the public be indicated on the copies provided by the country of origin. If the examiner wishes to obtain a copy of a specification from an international application filed under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) or a patent application from a WIPO-CASE participating Office, the Global Dossier Public Access is a tool which provides online access to the file histories of related applications. See MPEP § 901.08 for additional information.
Copies of various specifications not included in the search files, whether non-English-language patent documents or documents not printed or available for exchange, may come to the examiner’s attention. For example, they may be cited in a motion to dissolve an interference, be cited by applicants, or turn up in an online search. Upon request, STIC will obtain a copy from its extensive collection, or if necessary, from the patent office of the particular country. In the case of unprinted patent documents, STIC will request that the date of granting and the date the specification was made available to the public be indicated on the copies provided by the country of origin. If the examiner wishes to obtain a copy of a specification from an international application filed under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) or a patent application from a WIPO-CASE participating Office, the Global Dossier Public Access is a tool which provides online access to the file histories of related applications. See MPEP § 901.08 for additional information.
Citations
| Primary topic | Citation |
|---|---|
| Global Dossier Access Request Content and Form | MPEP § 901.08 |
| – | MPEP § 903.03 |
Source Text from USPTO’s MPEP
This is an exact copy of the MPEP from the USPTO. It is here for your reference to see the section in context.
Official MPEP § 901.05(c) — Obtaining Copies
Source: USPTO901.05(c) Obtaining Copies [R-01.2024]
Until October 1, 1995, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (Office) received copies of the published specifications of patents and patent applications from nearly all the countries which issued them in printed form. The Office receives most foreign patents in electronic form. The foreign patents so obtained are available to examiners from the USPTO’s automated search tools such as Patents End-to-End (PE2E) SEARCH, Foreign Patent Finder, Global Dossier, other foreign patent websites, and from the Foreign Patents Service Center (FPSC) located in the Scientific and Technical Information Center (STIC).
Until October 1995, it was the practice in the Office to classify and place only a single patent family member for each invention in the examiner search files. In addition, all non-English language patent documents placed in the examiner files were accompanied, to the extent possible, by an English language abstract. For countries where the specification is printed twice, once during the application stage and again after the patent has been granted, only the first printing was, in general, placed in the search files, since the second printing ordinarily does not vary from the first as to disclosure. The Derwent World Patents index is available on the PE2E SEARCH system and provides patent family information and Derwent titles and abstracts in English of foreign patent documents.
In addition to databases previously available in legacy search systems, PE2E SEARCH includes a foreign patent database named Foreign Image and Text (FIT). FIT contains a collection of foreign documents in full English text (i.e., abstract, description, claims) with accompanying images. The full text English documents are either natively in English or translated by a vendor. The vendor uses a variety of sources, including human and machine translations of the FIT data.
Copies of various specifications not included in the search files, whether non-English-language patent documents or documents not printed or available for exchange, may come to the examiner’s attention. For example, they may be cited in a motion to dissolve an interference, be cited by applicants, or turn up in an online search. Upon request, STIC will obtain a copy from its extensive collection, or if necessary, from the patent office of the particular country. In the case of unprinted patent documents, STIC will request that the date of granting and the date the specification was made available to the public be indicated on the copies provided by the country of origin. If the examiner wishes to obtain a copy of a specification from an international application filed under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) or a patent application from a WIPO-CASE participating Office, the Global Dossier Public Access is a tool which provides online access to the file histories of related applications. See MPEP § 901.08 for additional information.
Examiners can request copies of any foreign patent documents by submitting an online request using the Foreign Patent Request Form available through STIC’s NPL website on the USPTO intranet. Examiners may also request copies directly from the Foreign Patents Service Center (FPSC) of STIC. If examiners so choose, they can make copies themselves. The most current patent documents are accessible through the USPTO’s automated search systems, which allow public and USPTO users to look up, view, and print foreign documents. Older documents can be found on microfilm or print copies in the Main Service Center of the STIC. See MPEP § 903.03. The STIC Foreign Patents Service Center and the Electronic Information Centers (EICs) will assist examiners with accessing patent data from foreign countries. If examiners prefer self-service, PE2E SEARCH and other foreign patent websites are available for foreign patent retrieval. Additionally, STIC staff are able to retrieve foreign patent information for examiners.