An Archive of Patent Office Rules and Procedures
This isn’t really meant as a traditional post, but I’ve noticed that there isn’t one organized place to view older versions of the pamphlet issued by the Patent Office providing rules and procedures for filing patents and other interactions with the Patent Office. These rules are now housed within the CFR, and the Patent Office is now the USPTO, but it’s still useful to understand the rules for filing a patent when looking at an old patent. The bulk of these are from Hathitrust, but I’ve gone to the Library of Congress and elsewhere to digitize many of the older sets of rules not available online anywhere, in an effort to create a complete resource for people interested in the subject. This resource goes in hand with the list of copyright rules manuals I’ve previously posted.
Oh, and if you have a copy of old Patent Office Rules from a year not available below, let me know! If you put it online I’ll be sure to link to it. Note that unless otherwise, my scans were done at the Library of Congress – the three exceptions were done at the law library of the George Washington University School of Law
This collection has two caveats. The first is that I didn’t scan every rules pamphlet, or even almost all. I did, however, try to ensure that any gaps were minimized, so one can find the rules from within a few years before or after the relevant application was filed. In practice, the rules weren’t being completely changed every few years, so the rules of within a few years are likely pretty similar. The second is that, for my own scans, I used CamScanner instead of a proper scanner. The gist is that some pages aren’t quite as sharp as might be preferred, but everything is legible, and most pages are perfectly fine. It’s just not archival quality.
There are three types of such rule pamphlets published by the Patent Office (it became the Patent and Trademark Office in 1975). The first, published until 1877, contains all rules. In 1877 the Patent Office split off trademarks and prints/labels (registered under copyright rules with the Patent Office from 1874) into a separate pamphlet. In the 20th century, prints/labels were split off into their own pamphlet.
Patent/Unified Rules of Procedure
| 1828-1837 (At UNH’s IPMall) |
| 1834 |
| 1837 |
| 1844 |
| 1846 (My scan at LoC Law Library – includes all circulars) |
| 1849 |
| 1851 |
| 1852 (my scan of my copy) |
| 1854 (my scan) |
| 1855 (my scan at GW) |
| 1861 |
| 1866 (my scan at GW) |
| 1869 (my scan at GW) |
| 1871 (my scan) |
| 1873 (my scan) |
| 1875 (my scan) |
| 1878 (my scan) |
| 1880 |
| 1883 (my scan) |
| 1884 (my scan) |
| 1885 (my scan) |
| 1888 |
| 1892 |
| 1897 |
| 1901 |
| 1902 |
| 1903 |
| 1903-1904 |
| 1907 |
| 1908 |
| 1908 |
| 1908 |
| 1910 |
| 1911 |
| 1916 |
| 1916 |
| 1919 |
| 1919 |
| 1925 |
| 1927 |
| 1929 |
| 1931 |
| 1931-1935 (compiled) |
| 1933 |
| 1935 |
| February 1936 |
| October 1936 |
| 1936-1939 (compiled) |
| 1939 |
| February 1940 |
| October 1940 |
| 1940 |
| 1942 |
| 1942-1947 (compiled) |
| 1949-1955 (compiled) |
| 1950 |
| 1951 |
| 1953-1955 (compiled) |
| 1960-1963 (compiled) |
| 1960-1968 (compiled) |
| 1965 |
| 1968 |
| 1970-1973 (compiled) |
Trademark (and prints/labels until 1900) Rules of Procedure
- 1877 (my scan)
- 1881 (my scan)
- 1882 (my scan)
- 1885 (my scan)
- 1892 (my scan)
- 1898 (my scan)
- 1901
- 1906
- 1909
- 1911
- 1913
- 1919
- 1920
- 1922
- 1906-1939 (compiled)
- 1972
Rules for Registration of Prints and Labels under the 1874 Act
(covered in Patent Rules 1874-1876, Trademark Rules until 1900, law repealed 1940, registration returned to Copyright Office)
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