Representative and Address Provisions

The public uses this information collection to grant or revoke power of attorney, to withdraw as attorney or agent of record, to authorize a practitioner to act in a representative capacity, to change a correspondence address, to request a Customer Number, and to change the data associated with a Customer Number. The USPTO's Customer Number practice permits applicants, assignees, practitioners of record, and third party requesters to change the correspondence address or representatives of record for a number of applications, patents, or reexamination proceedings with one change request instead of filing separate requests for each application, patent, or reexamination proceeding. The USPTO uses the information in this collection to determine who is authorized to take action in an application, patent, or reexamination proceeding and where to send correspondence regarding an application, patent, or reexamination proceeding. The USPTO is submitting a request to update this information collection with seven new forms related to power of attorney and change of correspondence address: PTO/AIA/80, PTO/AIA/81, PTO/AIA/81B, PTO/AIA/82A and B, PTO/AIA/122, and PTO/AIA/123. Section 4 of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (AIA) amends 35 U.S.C. 118 to change the practice regarding the filing of an application by a person other than the inventor. The changes to 35 U.S.C. 118 impact who may give a power of attorney and who may change a correspondence address. The USPTO currently provides forms (e.g., PTO/SB/80, PTO/SB/81, PTO/SB/122, PTO/SB/123) for giving a power of attorney and changing a correspondence address. For consistency with the change in practice concerning who may be an applicant for patent, the USPTO is providing new forms for giving power of attorney and changing the correspondence address. The changes to 35 U.S.C. 118 in the AIA do not apply to applications filed prior to September 16, 2012. Thus, the USPTO plans to provide new forms for use with applications filed on or after September 16, 2012, but still continue to make the existing power of attorney and change of correspondence address forms (legacy forms) available until applications filed prior to September 16, 2012, are no longer pending before the USPTO.

The latest form for Representative and Address Provisions expires 2021-03-31 and can be found here.

Power of Attorney to Prosecute Applications Before the USPTO

Federal Enterprise Architecture: Economic Development - Intellectual Property Protection

Review document collections for all forms, instructions, and supporting documents - including paper/printable forms.