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 List of federal agencies in the United States, agency in the United States Department of Commerce, U.S. Department of Commerce that serves as the national patent office and trademark ...
to allow users to see the
prosecution
A prosecutor is a legal representative of the prosecution in states with either the adversarial system, which is adopted in common law, or inquisitorial system, which is adopted in Civil law (legal system), civil law. The prosecution is 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 sufficiency of disclosure, enabling discl ...
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 claim (patent), claims stated in a formal document, including necessary officia ...
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
Portable document format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe Inc., Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, computer hardware, ...
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 Inc. is a CAPTCHA system owned by Google. It 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 ...
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 Copyright#Scope, works protected by copyright without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the c ...
.[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; two-factor authentication, or 2FA) is an electronic authentication method in which a user is granted access to a website or Application software, application only after successfully presenting two or more distin ...
. For an unpublished application, the customer number must match that associated with the requested data.
Retirement
Public Pair was retired after July 31, 2022, in favor of the USPTO Patent Center. Private PAIR will be retired after November 8, 2023, also in favor of Patent Center.EFS-Web and Private PAIR to be retired
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See also
*Electronic Filing System (USPTO) Electronic Filing System of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), also referred to as EFS-Web or simply EFS, was a web-based system for submitting patent applications and related documents electronically.
All users could file new ...
*European Patent Register The European Patent Register, also known as the Register of European Patents, is a public register kept by the European Patent Office (EPO). It contains legal information relating to published European patent applications and European patents grante ...
, 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