Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) is an online service provided by the
United States Patent and Trademark Office
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is an agency in the U.S. Department of Commerce that serves as the national patent office and trademark registration authority for the United States. The USPTO's headquarters are in Alex ...
to allow users to see the
prosecution
A prosecutor is a legal representative of the prosecution in states with either the common law adversarial system or the Civil law (legal system), civil law inquisitorial system. The prosecution is the legal party responsible for presenting the ...
histories of United States
patent
A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A ...
s and
patent application
A patent application is a request pending at a patent office for the grant of a patent for an invention described in the patent specification and a set of one or more claims stated in a formal document, including necessary official forms and re ...
s and obtain copies of documents filed therein. There are two services: Public PAIR, which allows the general public to access information regarding patents and published applications; and Private PAIR, which allows authorized persons to access information regarding applications regardless of publication status.
[Check the filing status of your patent application](_blank)
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Displayed tabs
When a patent application is accessed through PAIR, the following tabs are displayed:
* Select New Case, to go to a different patent or application
* Application Data (default), showing bibliographic data about the application
* Transaction History, showing a list of transactions in the prosecution history
* Image File Wrapper, from which PDF copies of documents in the prosecution history may be downloaded
* Continuity Data
* Foreign Priority
* Published documents, identifying the patent application publication and patent, if any
* Address & Attorney/Agent, showing contact information
* Assignments
* Display References
Public PAIR
Anyone may use Public PAIR to access the prosecution histories of patents and of those applications that have been published. Unpublished applications are unavailable through Public PAIR. To access Public PAIR, one must verify through a reCAPTCHA
reCAPTCHA is a CAPTCHA system that enables web hosts to distinguish between human and automated access to websites. The original version asked users to decipher hard to read text or match images. Version 2 also asked users to decipher text or ...
process that one is not a robot.[Public PAIR](_blank)
/ref> Non-patent literature cited in a patent application is not available for viewing or downloading through Public PAIR because of concerns over copyright infringement
Copyright infringement (at times referred to as piracy) is the use of works protected by copyright without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the copyright holder, s ...
.[PAIR FAQ]
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Private PAIR
Users may use Private PAIR to access the prosecution histories of patents, published applications, and those unpublished applications that they are authorized to see. Private PAIR is accessible to registered patent attorneys and agents (and those working under their supervision) who have customer numbers.two-factor authentication
Multi-factor authentication (MFA; encompassing two-factor authentication, or 2FA, along with similar terms) is an electronic authentication method in which a user is granted access to a website or application only after successfully presenting ...
. For an unpublished application, the customer number must match that associated with the requested data.
Retirement
Public Pair will be retired after July 31, 2022, in favor of the USPTO Patent Center. As of July 2022, the USPTO is considering retiring Private PAIR but has no specific plans to do so.Public PAIR to be retired
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See also
* Electronic Filing System (USPTO)
* European Patent Register, service similar to PAIR, but provided by the European Patent Office (EPO) for European patent applications and patents
References
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United States Patent and Trademark Office