USPTO plans to open new regional offices, community outreach offices
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office will open a new regional office in the Atlanta, Georgia, metropolitan area to serve innovators in the Southeast region, and a new community outreach office in Strafford County, New Hampshire, to serve new Services provided by innovators across England.
The Atlanta office is expected to be fully open and operational in December 2025, with the New Hampshire outreach office to be operational soon.
The new office was established as part of the Unleashing American Innovators Act of 2022 (UAIA), which was signed into law in December 2022. The selection of the new regional office is based on criteria in the UAIA, which stipulates that the decision should be based on several characteristics, including:
- There are a large number of patent-intensive industries near the factory site.
- How many research-intensive institutions, including higher education institutions, are located near this location.
- State and local government legal framework that supports IP-intensive industries near the site.
- The office is close to individual inventors, small businesses, veterans, low-income individuals, students, rural populations, and any geographic innovator group that is underrepresented in patent applications.
The decision to locate the Northern New England Community Outreach Office is based on the following criteria:
- Located in an area with at least one public and one private higher education institution.
- In jurisdictions with 15 or fewer registered patent attorneys.
- In a jurisdiction where women, minority and veteran-owned businesses make up less than 45% of total business ownership.
The USPTO received more than 200 comments about the possible new location from the public, USPTO employees, city and state officials and the business community.