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U.S. Patent

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (PTO or USPTO) is an agency in the United States Department of Commerce that provides patent and trademark protection to inventors and businesses for their inventions and corporate and product identification.

The PTO, currently based in the Crystal City area of Arlington, Virginia, will complete a move to consolidated offices in Alexandria, Virginia by 2005.

Since 1991, the office has been fully funded by fees charged for processing patents and trademarks.

Mission

The mission of the PTO is to promote "industrial and technological progress in the United States and strengthen the national economy" by:

• administering the laws relating to patents and trademarks;
• advising the Secretary of Commerce, the President of the United States, and the administration on patent, trademark, and copyright protection; and
• providing advice on the trade-related aspects of intellectual property.

Patents

• Each year, the PTO issues thousands of patents to companies and individuals all around the world. As of August 2004, the PTO has issued nearly seven million patents.

• The X-Patents (the first 10,000 issued between 1790 and 1836) were destroyed by a fire; less than 3,000 of those have been recovered and re-issued with numbers ending in "X" to distinguish them from those issued after the fire.