Filing Format and Who May Sign
Two USPTO rules: the non-DOCX surcharge from 17 January 2024, and signing software from 22 March 2024. Read from the primary document; quotations verified against its own text.
The USPTO delayed its non-DOCX filing surcharge to January 17, 2024, and separately, effective March 22, 2024, began permitting patent correspondence to be signed through third-party document-signing software such as DocuSign or Acrobat Sign, provided the software preserves the signature data and the named signer personally makes their own signature.
Two unrelated mechanics, both of which touch every filing.
The non-DOCX surcharge took effect January 17, 2024 after a delay.
Separately, from March 22, 2024, patent correspondence may be signed through third-party document-signing software. The Office named DocuSign and Acrobat Sign as examples of the category. Two conditions attach: the software must preserve the signature data, and the named signer must personally make their own signature. Software may carry the signature; it may not make it.
What This Does Not Decide
- It does not say whether a particular signature workflow complies.
- It does not say whether a specific filing owes the surcharge.
- It concerns filing format and signature mechanics, and says nothing about patentability.
Educational, not legal advice. This page reports what an authority says. Applying it to a matter is work for a registered practitioner with the file in front of them.
Sources
- USPTO rules on DOCX filing (eff. Jan. 17, 2024) and electronic signatures (eff. Mar. 22, 2024)
- Back to the cluster