Beginner's Guide to Patent Powers of Attorney

A patent assignee becomes "of record" and may then conduct prosecution of a patent application by filing a statement in compliance with 37 CFR § 3.73(b) that is "signed by a party who is authorized to act on behalf of the assignee, e.g., an officer of the assignee." In this regard, the USPTO issued three new Patent Power of Attorney forms in April 2005

1. http://www.uspto.gov/web/forms/sb0080.pdf
2. http://www.uspto.gov/web/forms/sb0081_fill.pdf
3. http://www.uspto.gov/web/forms/sb0082_fill.pdf

Each requires the "SIGNATURE of Assignee of Record: The individual whose signature and title is supplied below is authorized to act on behalf of the assignee."

The first Form PTO/SB/80 one may be used by an assignee (e.g., a corporation) to give a Power of Attorney to registered practitioners (either by individual name(s) or to those registered practitioners who are associated with a customer number) for (all) applications assigned to the assignee, and individual patent application numbers are not indicated. After execution of a single form by the assignee, a copy of the executed PTO/SB/80 form, together with a statement under 37 CFR 3.73(b) (using, for example, a PTO/SB/96 form) which identifies one specific patent application (which may be executed by a practitioner if the practitioner is authorized to act on behalf of the assignee), may be filed in the one specific application to establish a power of attorney for the registered practitioner(s) in that specific application.

The advantage of the use of this PTO/SB/80 form is that an assignee only has to be asked to sign this one Power of Attorney to Prosecute Applications Before the USPTO form, as copies of it can then be used to establish the desired power of attorney in (all) the patent applications of the assignee. To establish a power of attorney in each of the individual applications of the assignee, the attorney(s) would file: 1) a copy of the one executed PTO/SB/80 form, and 2) an application specific statement under 37 CFR 3.73(b) (using, for example, a PTO/SB/96 form).