USPTO Implements Electronic Patent Issuance; No More Patent Grants on Paper

Effective April 18, 2023, United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is implementing electronic patent issuance. Per the USPTO announcement, the USPTO will issue electronic patent grants (eGrants) through Patent Center, the USPTO’s electronic patent application filing and management system, which includes patent document viewing. As a result, patent grants will no longer be issued on paper, and will no longer be mailed to the correspondence address of record. Instead, the patentee will be able to view and print the complete issued patent from Patent Center immediately upon issue. Furthermore, the USPTO states, that during a transition period, the USPTO will provide a paper copy of the electronic patent grant as a ceremonial copy, delivered to the patentees correspondence address of record. The electronic patent grant is the official statutory patent grant.

Refer to the USPTO website at https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center/egrants for further details.