Hi. My name is Mark Trenner. I’m a patent attorney here in Colorado. I started my law firm, the Trenner Law Firm, in 2004. I’ve been helping individual inventors, entrepreneurs, start-ups and small businesses now for over 10 years write patent applications for their inventions.
Today I’m here to answer your question, what does the opening of the patent office mean to me as an inventor. Well, at first, I’d like to say, I was really excited to hear that the patent office opened several satellite patent offices in the past couple of years. They opened one out in Silicon Valley. That makes sense, right. There is a lot of tech going on out there, a lot of patent applications being filed. They also opened a patent office here in Denver. I believe the third one they opened was in Detroit, Michigan. I’m most excited about the one that they opened here in Denver. Why am I excited about it? It brings a lot of attention to the patent system. It brings a lot of attention to patents here in the State of Colorado, and the City of Denver and to the whole surrounding areas. There is a lot of tech going on here in Colorado. So, we are all really excited to see that. What does it mean practically? I’ll have people talk to me and say now that there is a patent office in Denver, should I go there to file my patent application or should I go there to do a search of the patent records? If I file a patent application, can I go in to talk to the examiner about it. The answer is yes and no. Yes, you can go to the patent office to file, although they prefer that you do it online. You can also go there to search the patent databases, although that all can be done online too. They may have some special events there you might want to look into. Check out the patent office website at uspto.gov. But, what does it mean practically? Can you do down there and talk to an examiner and hopefully get them to issue your patent? Yes and no. You could do that today. You can make an appointment with an examiner and go to the office in D.C. and meet with them in person, you can also talk to them on the phone. So, practically, does it mean anything that there is a patent office here in Denver? Practically, it doesn’t change anything. You’re still able to do exactly what you were able to do before. But, it may help if your patent happens to be examined by an examiner here in Denver and you’re in Denver to schedule an appointment and go sit down with them and talk to them about your invention, talk to them about what is new and unique about it. Just like you were able to do in the past, except now you don’t have the travel expenses to go to D.C. So, practically, did anything change? No, it’s not like new doors have opened. You used to be able to go in and talk to the examiner and you still can. You might save some travel expenses. That is a benefit to having it here in Denver. I think, from my perspective, the biggest benefit to having the patent office open here in Denver is just the attention that the patent office brings to the State of Colorado, and to Denver and to the surrounding areas and the tech environment that’s going on here.
My name is Mark Trenner. I’m a patent attorney. I hope that I answered your question of what does the new satellite patent office here in Denver mean to me as an inventor.