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Patent Assignment Database: Everything You Need to Know

The Patent Assignment Database has all recorded patent information from August 1980 until now, added by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). 8 min read updated on February 01, 2023

What Is the Patent Assignment Database?

The Patent Assignment Database has all recorded patent information from August 1980 until now. Any time someone adds information to one of the patent records, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) adds it to the database. However, it doesn't check to make sure that the new information is correct.

How Do Patent Assignments Work?

Assignments offer flexibility. Different people can acquire different rights to a patent. One person could have the patent assignment, but a prior owner could keep a license to use the technology for free.

An interested party could only look at these documents at the USPTO. They're not available online. The best practice is for the owner of a patent to show all current and previous assignments. This is a chain of title that starts with the inventor. The most recent entry should be the current owner.

Each license agreement should also have a record. If the current owner lacks this information, they should contact previous owners. Most assignments come from the patent attorneys of startups.

One ongoing issue is that many assignments are years or even decades old. Patent law could have changed in the interim. The owner should try to keep an assignment as current as possible.

The most likely omission to an assignment is the right to causes of action. It's important because this right gives someone the ability to sue for past damages. Inventors don't have to worry about the right to causes of action since prior infringement is impossible. Once patents change hands, it's a key concern.

Interested parties should also check assignments to see if any security interests exist. In rare instances, inventors do put patents up for collateral, generally in bank transactions. The assignments database will show this information.

What Happens If No Assignments Exist?

First time inventors and new startups often have no assignments. A potential investor should wait three months in such situations. That's because a person has three months to file an assignment. It's a rate/notice policy. An assignment that was filed sooner has priority.

The danger is that someone else earned the patent assignment during those three months. They simply haven't filed with the USPTO yet. 

An older patent application without an assignment also has a requirement. The owner must file an assignment and wait three months to see if anyone else files an assignment. Assuming they don't, the assignment becomes valid.

A solid chain of title is important. It prevents infringement claims or questions of ownership. 

What Are Inventorship Issues?

Probably the worst thing that can happen with a patent claim is that someone isn't listed correctly. These situations can lead to long, expensive legal battles. An attorney can defeat a patent by proving an incorrect listing of the inventors.

There are two types of inventorship issues. Sometimes people are left off the document. One or more people could be listed as inventors even if they had nothing to do with the actual invention. The other issue is that an inventor could exclude people from the listing who deserve inventor status. 

Which Issues Arise From Having Too Many or Too Few Inventors Listed?

Inventor listings include some degree of politics. The owner of a company might expect an inventor listing for anything his employees create.

The opposite is also true. Some leaders are so generous that they credit a lot of employees as inventors, even if these workers added little to the project. 

Problems arise when someone buys the company or acquires rights to the patent. The owner of the patent has to get approval from every inventor listed.

If this happens a long time after the invention, several of these employees might work for different companies now. An investigator must contact each of them to get approval. If a single person refuses, an affadavit could negate the entire patent. 

Having too few inventors isn't as big a concern in most instances. The glaring exception is a startup accelerator company. These patents have only half the value. Many of these businesses work in tight quarters.

An employee from one startup could easily give advice to someone from a different firm. This advice could lead to a patent. The person from the second company would expect listing on the patent.

Whether the person is right or not doesn't matter. The fact that they believe it is enough to cause issues. Investors aren't interested in such patents since they appreciate the risk. The second person's claim could invalidate the patent, making it worthless.

Do Any Legal Issues Come Into Play?

Yes. For inventor claims, the safest tactic is to require employee agreements . These agreements are for patents and proprietary information. The contracts generally give the company ownership of an invention. This happens the moment the worker signs the contract.

The USPTO will accept this document as a an assignment, too. It's a preventative measure against inventors trying to take patent claims with them when they leave the company.

How Does the Patent Assignment Database Work?

The Patent Assignment Database has a search button that lets people find information about patents . The site shows assignments, which work almost the same way as a deed that shows the transfer of real estate. A person or business receives an assignment. This document lists the transfer of a patent.

Under the latest update, version 1.4, a person can search and download almost all patent information. A user can also download the original patent assignment and cover sheets. Before this update, people had to buy copies from the USPTO.

The current available searches on the Patent Assignment Database include:

• Assignee name
• Frame/reel number : The government stores patent assignment documents on microfiche. The reel number and frame number show the numbers for the specific reel and frame of the real documents.
• Patent number

The newest search features in version 1.4 include:

• Quick look-up : The user can enter one or more of the search terms above to find the exact document they want to read.
• Quick nav links
• Favorite views : A person can research Legacy Assignments on the Web (AOTW) to see Assignor and Assignee summaries and details.

The USPTO has changed the way it shows information on the Patent Assignment Database website. The earlier version showed ownership information. The updated version shows PDF images of the recorded documents. These include executed assignment documents. The new system is better since the public instead of the USPTO verifies ownership information. The USPTO simply displays the cover sheet record. 

How Does a User Search the Patent Assignment Database?

The Patent Assignment Database is easy to search . It has an ordered setup that lets the user look up intellectual property (IP) assets.

The search engine lets users:

• Search for patents : Specific searches are possible. A user can find basically anything they want if they know how to look for it.
• Set mail alerts : A person can ask for email notifications when the system finds a certain patent listing or update. This immediate alert helps people in the patent industry become the first ones to know about a change that affects their industry.
• Receive alerts about patent assignment updates : A person may want to know when the status of a patent changes. Since the system records every update, a person can ask for alerts about any patents that they're watching.
• Research legal issues : One of the updates that the Patent Assignment Database tracks is lawsuits. When a lawsuit impacts a patent, the database updates the file. Someone researching a specific patent can view all of this information.

What Are the Benefits of Tracking the Patent Assignment Database?

A person who monitors the Patent Assignment Database can benefit greatly. Potential benefits include:

• Seeing technology trends : When a person notices several patent claims in the same industry, they can study it for potential growth. New advances in a field generally lead to economic growth.

For example, a discovery in digital advertising rules allowed Facebook to become one of the most valuable companies in the world. Someone studying the company's patent filings could have bought shares in Facebook at a low cost, making a lot of money over time. They also could have invested in other companies that would benefit from the sales growth of digital advertising.

• Ability to acquire IP and/or company : Patent filings hint at future developments in an industry. A business or investor with extra money can track the Patent Assignment Database to find the next big thing in a field.

Facebook, for example, saw Oculus Rift filings and decided to buy the company for roughly $2 billion . It now owns many of the most important virtual reality patents in the world. Had Facebook waited until later to buy, it might have had to pay a lot more for the same intellectual property.

• Understand company portfolio in greater detail : The various copyrights that a company owns are important to its business standing. By studying current patents and any additions, a person will have a greater understanding of a company's current and future financial positions.

Is Any Information Not Listed in the Patent Assignment Database?

The database records few patent licenses. While a person might want to know the names of every business that licenses a patent, the government doesn't deem this information important. So, no rule requires a person or company to list licensing usages.

This decision is good for businesses. Many licensing deals are confidential. A company would have to break that agreement to register the licensing agreement on the patent record. Some web search engines allow users to search every listed licensing instance, though.

How Does a User Find the Current Owner Information of a Patent?

The Public Pair link at the Patent Assignment Database has information about the current owner of a patent. The user can search for this information using any of the Application Number, Patent Number , or Publication Number.

One note about the process is that it's not always correct. The reporting of an assignment isn't always immediate. Until this happens, the database won't record changes on the patent record. As a safety measure, check a paid database. Otherwise, your best bet is to do a search in Google News.

How Does a User Search the Patent Assignment Database More Effectively?

The system isn't user-friendly. A person will need a lot of practice to master searches. A few tips for searching more effectively include:

• Remove employer assignments : Some employers have contracts that require patent assignments. These lead to pointless results when you do a search. You can remove these assignments with a single click. The results will seem less cluttered.
• Name changes : Corporations change their names from time to time. When this happens, they file the change with the USPTO. The outcome is that all of their patents will show misleading ownership changes. Do a search for "Change of Name" to remove those results from your search.
• Merges and acquisitions : The same issue occurs with these transactions. The patent technically changes hands but not in a meaningful way. Use the Conveyance button to remove "Change of Name" and "Merger" from your results.
• Security agreements : These transactions give the least useful results. Some companies use patents to secure loans. Until they pay the amount owed, the patent's ownership status lists with the wrong company, the money lender. In some cases, thousands of transactions display incorrectly. Remove "Security" from your results to avoid this information overload.

The patent assignment database underscores the difficulty of the patent process . Your best buy is to hire a top attorney to guide you through the process. Post your job on Upcounsel to find the best lawyer for your needs.

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The basics of patent assignments

What is a patent assignment, what are the requirements to make it valid, and why would a business enter into a patent assignment agreement? Read on to find answers to these questions and more.

Find out more about Patents

by   Cindy DeRuyter, Esq.

Cindy DeRuyter, Esq., has been writing for LegalZoom since 2018. She earned a Juris Doctor from Mitchell Hamline Scho...

Read more...

Updated on: December 4, 2023 · 2 min read

Defining Patent Assignment

Requirements to assign a patent, searching for patent assignments.

Assigning patents can be a great way for companies to generate revenue and reduce risks associated with intellectual property ownership. If you are considering entering into a patent assignment agreement, understand that it is irrevocable. Because of that, evaluate proposed terms and provisions carefully before moving forward.

Here's a high-level overview of how patent assignments work: when a patent's owner or applicant assigns it to another individual or company, the assignor agrees to relinquish their rights to enforce or benefit from it in the future.

You can assign rights for applications still pending with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). When the USPTO approves the application, the assignee benefits from and may use and enforce the patent, not the assignor. Companies also assign rights for issued patents, which relieves the assignor of the burden of enforcing their intellectual property and provides a source of revenue.

Patent assignments can be lucrative for both parties. While assignors make money right away, assignees can create revenue streams by earning money from royalty payments. After an assignment is complete, the assignee has exclusive rights to such income.

A patent assignment agreement documents the transfer and arrangement between the parties. If you are considering entering into one, know that you need it to be written—a verbal agreement alone is insufficient.

Don't underestimate the importance of this, either. Without a valid agreement on file with the USPTO, an intended assignor remains legally responsible for the patent and an intended assignee gains none of the rights or benefits.

Here are the requirements for a valid written assignment:

• Confirm that the assignor has the full, legal right to make the assignment and that the assignee can legally assume the rights and obligations.
• Clearly identify both the assignor and assignee using legal names. If more than one company owns the patent, identify all owners.
• Identify the underlying patent by title and number and include a complete and accurate description of it.
• Describe the terms of the agreement, including financial arrangements.
• All parties must sign the agreement, with limited exceptions in situations where the assignor cannot be reached but where enough evidence exists that documents their intentions and rights.
• File the patent assignment with the USPTO within three months after the agreement is signed, paying the then-current fee.

Though the agreement is a legal document, it does not need to be notarized. However, obtaining notarization for the signatures provides added protection, limiting the risk of a party later claiming a signature was not valid.

The USPTO maintains a patent assignment database that includes all the assignments recorded since August 1980. Using the database, you can search with the assignor's or assignee's name, the patent number, application number, publication number, or other identifying information.

Properly assigning patents protects both assignors and assignees. If you want to assign a patent, downloading a patent assignment form can help. Alternatively, you can consult an intellectual property attorney .

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New to Intellectual Property?

The USPTO has issued a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) to add a new requirement for terminal disclaimers filed to obviate (overcome) nonstatutory double patenting. 

The Strategy aims to grow the economy, create quality jobs, and address global challenges by increasing participation in STEM, inventorship, and innovation among youth and those from historically underrepresented and underresourced communities.

The Federal Register Notice seeks public feedback on how the proliferation of AI could affect USPTO evaluations on patentability, including what qualifies as prior art and the assessment of the level of ordinary skills in the art.

NPRM announced to advance our goal of ensuring fair, transparent, and efficient procedures throughout the PTAB—Comments on the proposed rule are due on or before June 17, 2024.

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Terminal Disclaimers: A Growing Concern in Patent Practice

In a recent post , I discussed major proposed changes to terminal disclaimer practice that could significantly impact the landscape of patent law. Today, I want to briefly note a trend that underscores why these proposed changes are more pertinent than ever: the increasing percentage of U.S. utility patents bound by a terminal disclaimer.

The Rising Trend 

USPTO data from the last two decades reveal a noticeable increase in the percentage of issued patents with a terminal disclaimer, from 9% in 2006 to more than 18% by 2024, with a major jump from the prior trend in 2023. These trends suggests a growing complexity in patent portfolios and an increasing emphasis on non-statutory double patenting at the USPTO. At the same time, the number of patents issued per year has also more than doubled. The result then is that in 2023 almost 60,000 utility patents were bound by a terminal disclaimer.

The data also indicate that this trend spans a diverse set of entities—from large tech corporations to small startups and individual inventors. This diversity suggests that the implications of both the rising trend of terminal disclaimers and the proposed regulatory changes are widespread, affecting a broad swath of the innovation ecosystem.

The USPTO’s regulatory proposal has now been published and can be reviewed here:  https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/05/10/2024-10166/terminal-disclaimer-practice-to-obviate-nonstatutory-double-patenting .  The USPTO is only accepting comments via the Federal eRulemaking Portal at www.regulations.gov . To submit comments via the eRulemaking portal, you have to search for docket number PTO-P-2024-0003.

Major Proposed Changes to Terminal Disclaimer Practice (and You are Not Going to Like it)

10 thoughts on “ Terminal Disclaimers: A Growing Concern in Patent Practice ”

Off-Topic: Any have a good citation with regard to overcoming an Examiner’s rejection that use of the suffix “-like” renders the claim indefinite?

What is it about this comment which you think readers of Patently-O would find offensive? Thanks for your report!

What this is about is attacking litigation. A patent without a pending continuation is worth far less and it is going to be far harder to keep continuations pending without TDs.

This will weaken litigation practice and was thought up probably by some Google attorney and then communicated to the director. She probably is obeying her soon to be supervisor’s role so she can ensure a big pay out when she leaves the USPTO.

That is literally the only reason to be doing this.

And is it true that if claim 1 is obvious in view Reference A and B, and claim 2 is obvious in view of claim 1, then claim 2 is obvious over Reference A and B.

Is that true?

I’d say no.

Keeping continuations and/or divisionals pending could even avoid litigation [if willing to license], if new claims can later be added therein supported by the spec that are broad enough to clearly cover later competive products of others, yet narrow enough to avoid subsequently uncovered prior art. [If the parent application is abandoned after the continuation is filed then double-patenting issues can be avoided,]

I will say this is going to greatly increase the complexity of continuation practice. Examiners aren’t going to be happy with this. Now, it is seldom worth it fighting a statutory double patenting rejection. With these rules probably every statutory double patenting rejection will be fought tooth and nail.

The tone of this post is ridiculous. The rising percentage of issued patents having TDs is not a problem. What has happened is more people are filing continuations because of IPRs and other litigation where claims are so easily invalidated. In fact, the general rule of thumb is that a patent with a pending litigation is worth about at least twice the value of a patent without a pending continuation for litigation purposes.

And the number of patent application from US inventors is decreasing because of the hostile patent environment set up by the USPTO and Federal Circuit.

The simplest answer is that the USPTO wants to bring in more fee money. Many of the proposed changes by the USPTO involve the USPTO obtaining higher fees.

The question to be asked:

Who benefits from these proposed changes?

(Hint: it is not the innovators)

The increase in Terminal Disclaimers (TD) results from the increased sophistication of patent applicants.

30 years ago, you filed a patent application, got broad claims issued, received your patent, and then you moved on.

In today’s environment, with the Federal Circuit invalidating patents for a myriad of reasons, it is valuable to keep an application pending. You can fix a claim construction issue. You can tweak the claims to better read on a competitor’s product. You can beef up the claims to address a 101 rejection. Consequently, clients have learned that if they intend to litigate a patent portfolio, it is imperative to keep continuations pending.

Clients have also gotten more sophisticated about getting additional patents out of the same patent application. For big clients, where the the absolute number of patents can be more important than the strength of any one patent (in the context of cross-licensing or straight up licensing), then getting additional patents with the same patent application can be more cost-effective.

Something I have seen quite often is that an Examiner will offer to allow something that is narrower than what the client believes they are entitled to. In that situation, the client will take the allowable claims and allow that application to issue and then file a continuation application to go after broader claims.

Oftentimes, the obviousness-type double patenting (OTDP) rejections I’ve encountered are the WORST rejections I have ever seen. A ODTP rejection is a rejection for obviousness — yet many examiners won’t even make the barest of analysis explaining why the new claims are obvious in few of the old claims. Today, many clients will file a TD just to overcome a OTDP rejection — even if the OTDP rejection is not warranted. There is little downside as the patents will almost always be commonly owned. However, if the USPTO’s new proposal is put into effect, expect a LOT more fighting over OTDP rejections.

With the 20 year from filing limit on patent term and the trivially-easy ability to search the ownership of a patent family online (something that couldn’t have been said 30 years), I don’t see the continuing policy justification for making OTDP rejections.

Back when I was an engineer and we were being taught about process improvement, one of the lessons we were given was about how many processes are infected by tasks that had relevance decades ago but changes have made those tasks irrelevant. However, those tasks remain because of the attitude “that is how we always did things.” Consequently, to perform process improvement, we had to identify those unnecessary tasks and remove them. OTDP rejections are just another one of those things that had some usefulness some time ago — a usefulness that is mostly unnecessary today.

Dennis, is this recent increase in isssued patents with terminal disclamers logically correlated to an increase in the number of issued patents based on or having continuation or divisional applications? Or, could it just be wider knowledge among patent attorneys that not filing a terminal disclaimer until after the patent is issued and is being sued on may be too late if one patent got a term extension?

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Learn how to search like an examiner and give input on patent applications

Published on: 05/09/2024 14:38 PM

Get an in-depth look at how examiners search for prior art when reviewing a patent application, and learn how you can provide input on pending patent applications that matter to you: join us for our second Public Engagement Partnership meeting virtually and in person at United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia, on June 10 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. ET .

We’ll conduct a hands-on prior art search workshop, and USPTO patent experts and practitioners will provide information and strategies on filing third-party submissions – documents that members of the public can file for consideration during an examiner’s review of a pending patent application.

This event is free and specifically designed for members of the public in advocacy groups, public interest-focused nonprofits, academia, and civil society organizations. Learn more about the Public Engagement Partnership meeting series on the USPTO website . 

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