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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 232 / Tuesday, December 7, 2021 / Proposed Rules DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
Patent and Trademark Office 37 CFR Part 1
Docket No. PTOP20170011
RIN 0651AD21

Date of Receipt of Electronic Submissions of Patent Correspondence United States Patent and Trademark Office, Department of Commerce.
ACTION: Notice of proposed rulemaking.
AGENCY:

The USPTO proposes to amend the patent rules of practice to provide that the receipt date of correspondence officially submitted electronically by way of the Office electronic filing system is the date in the Eastern time zone of the United States Eastern Time when the USPTO
received the correspondence, rather than the date on which the correspondence is received at the correspondence address in Alexandria, Virginia. This is because the USPTO is expecting to provide physical servers for receiving electronic submissions in locations that are separate from the USPTO headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia. This proposed change will ensure consistency and predictability with respect to correspondence receipt dates as the date of receipt accorded to correspondence submitted electronically will not depend upon the location of USPTO servers. The USPTO
is also proposing to amend the patent rules of practice to make other clarifying changes regarding the receipt of electronic submissions, including providing a definition for Eastern Time.
These changes will harmonize the patent rules with the trademark rules and provide clarity regarding the date of receipt of electronic submissions.
DATES: Comments must be received by February 7, 2022 to ensure consideration.
ADDRESSES: For reasons of government efficiency, comments must be submitted through the Federal eRulemaking Portal at www.regulations.gov. To submit comments via the portal, one should enter docket number PTOP20170011
on the homepage and click search.
The site will provide search results listing all documents associated with this docket. Commenters can find a reference to this notice and click on the Comment Now! icon, complete the required fields, and enter or attach their comments. Attachments to electronic comments will be accepted in Adobe

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portable document format or Microsoft Word format. Because comments will be made available for public inspection, information that the submitter does not desire to make public, such as an address or phone number, should not be included in the comments.
Visit the Federal eRulemaking Portal for additional instructions on providing comments via the portal. If electronic submission of, or access to, comments is not feasible due to a lack of access to a computer and/or the internet, please contact the USPTO using the contact information below for special instructions.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For patent-related inquiries, please contact Mark O. Polutta, Senior Legal Advisor, Office of Patent Legal Administration, by telephone at 5712727709; or Kristie M. Kindred, Legal Advisor, Office of Patent Legal Administration, by telephone at 5712729016; or you can send inquiries by email to patentpractice@uspto.gov.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Under current 37 CFR 1.6a4, the receipt date of correspondence submitted to the USPTO by way of the Office electronic filing system is the date the correspondence is received at the correspondence address for the USPTO
set forth in 37 CFR 1.1 when it was officially submitted. Current 37 CFR
1.1 sets forth an Alexandria, Virginia, correspondence address for the Office.
The USPTOs physical servers that receive electronic submissions are currently located in Alexandria, Virginia. However, in order to enhance resiliency, the USPTO is in the process of providing servers in Manassas, Virginia, and in the future may provide servers outside of the Eastern time zone.
Once the USPTO begins receiving electronically submitted patent correspondence at locations other than Alexandria, Virginia, the language in current 37 CFR 1.6a4 that defines the date the correspondence is received at Alexandria, Virginia, as the receipt date would be inapplicable. Thus, the USPTO is proposing to revise 37 CFR
1.6a4 to specify that the receipt date of correspondence that is officially submitted electronically by way of the Office electronic filing system is the date in Eastern Time when the USPTO
received the correspondence, regardless of the physical location of the USPTO
server that receives the correspondence.
Other clarifying changes regarding the receipt date of electronic submissions, including providing a definition for Eastern Time, are also proposed.
In addition, the changes will align the patent rules with the Legal Framework
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for the Patent Electronic System, available at www.uspto.gov/patents/
apply/filing-online/legal-framework-efsweb and in the Manual of Patent Examining Procedure MPEP section 502.05, subsection I. The Legal Framework already indicates that the time and date of receipt of an application filed via the Office electronic filing system is the local time and date Eastern Time at the USPTO
headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia, when the USPTO received the submission. The date of receipt is recorded after the user clicks the SUBMIT button on the Confirm and Submit screen. This is the date shown on the Electronic Acknowledgement Receipt. Similarly, follow-on documents filed in a patent application after the initial filing of the application are also accorded the date when the document is received at the USPTO as the date of receipt under existing practice. See MPEP section 502.05, subsection I.C.
With respect to patent correspondence, any references to the Office electronic filing system in this Notice including in 37 CFR part 1
include EFS-Web and Patent Center.
Patent Center is a new tool for the electronic filing and management of patent applications. Patent Center is currently in the Beta phase but is available for all users. Once fully developed, Patent Center will replace EFS-Web and the Patent Application Information Retrieval PAIR system.
Users of Patent Center Beta are required to abide by the Legal Framework for the Patent Electronic System to the extent applicable and are expected to abide by the Patent Electronic System Subscriber Agreement. See the Patent Center Beta Release Guidelines available at www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patentcenter. In the future, as Patent Center gets closer to full development, the Legal Framework for the Patent Electronic System will be revised to expressly refer to and more specifically cover electronic submissions via Patent Center.
The rules of practice in trademark cases already provide that filing dates of electronic submissions are based on Eastern Time. See 37 CFR 2.195a.
Therefore, it is unnecessary to amend the trademark rules of practice.
Discussion of Specific Rules The following is a discussion of the proposed amendments to 37 CFR part 1.
Section 1.1: Section 1.1a is amended to clarify the appropriate address information for patent-related correspondence. In particular, the clause except as provided in paragraphs a3i and a3ii of this
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