United States Patent and Trademark Office
agency in the United States Department of Commerce
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 Alexandria, Virginia, after a 2005 move from the Crystal City area of neighboring Arlington County, Virginia.
The USPTO is "unique among federal agencies because it operates solely on fees collected by its users, and not on taxpayer dollars". Its "operating structure is like a business in that it receives requests for services—applications for patents and trademark registrations—and charges fees projected to cover the cost of performing the services [it] provide[s]".
The office is headed by the under secretary of commerce for intellectual property and director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office. As of September 2025, John A. Squires is the undersecretary and director, having been confirmed by the U.S. Senate as part of an en bloc vote.
The USPTO cooperates with the European Patent Office (EPO) and the Japan Patent Office (JPO) as one of the Trilateral Patent Offices. The USPTO is also a Receiving Office, an International Searching Authority and an International Preliminary Examination Authority for international patent applications filed in accordance with the Patent Cooperation Treaty.
Mission
The legal basis for the United States patent system is the Copyright Clause in Section 8 of Article I of the U.S. Constitution, which gives Congress the power to grant patents and copyrights on a national basis. Trademark law, on the other hand, is considered to be authorized by the Commerce Clause.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “United States Patent and Trademark Office” as agency in the United States Department of Commerce. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as agency in the United States Department of Commerce. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1459541. VIAF identifies the subject as 149517371. The Library of Congress control number is n79076648. Authority coordinates are 38.801, -77.064. 2 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2005 and 2025.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “United States Patent and Trademark Office”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow United States Patent and Trademark Office primary sources, United States Patent and Trademark Office archive and United research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “United States Patent and Trademark Office”?
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- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “United States Patent and Trademark Office” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.