A new design for the patent grant cover was veiled Sunday by the United States Patent and Trademark Office in a ceremony at South by Southwest Interactive Festival in Austin.

The office said that the redesigned cover will make its debut on patent No. 10 million, which is expected to be issued sometime in 2018. The USPTO Texas Regional Office is in downtown Dallas.

Pictured from left to right: Robert Metcalfe, inventor of Ethernet and a National Inventors Hall of Fame inductee; Andrei Iancu, under secretary of commerce for intellectual property and director of the USPTO; Drew Hirshfeld, USPTO commissioner for patents; and Susann Keohane, IBM master inventor and global research leader for the Aging Initiative, unveil the new design for U.S. patents. [Photo courtesy of Jay Premack/USPTO]

“This new patent design not only celebrates how far we’ve come and the new frontiers we have yet to explore, it also represents the cornerstone and the currency of an American intellectual property system …”
Andrei Iancu

“American ingenuity has been at the forefront of every major technological revolution of the past two centuries, from steam engines to flight, and from the biotechnology revolution to the information revolution,” Andrei Iancu, under secretary of commerce for intellectual property and director of the USPTO, said in a release.

“This new patent design not only celebrates how far we’ve come and the new frontiers we have yet to explore, it also represents the cornerstone and the currency of an American intellectual property system that has given so much to the world and will continue to do so for ages to come.” 

The patent cover design was created by a team of in-house USPTO graphic designers and the final selection was made by Commissioner for Patents Drew Hirshfeld from among several versions.   

The new design gives a nod to history with influence from 19th and 20th century cover designs, but has an updated “modern day flair,” Hirshfeld said.

“When our designers and patents team were creating the new cover we wanted to create a design worthy of the significance [and] importance that the document itself has to inventors, and its significance as a physical representation of American invention and ingenuity.” 

New patent cover design. [Photo courtesy of USPTO]

FEWER THAN A DOZEN COVER DESIGNS IN OVER 225 YEARS

The USPTO said that the patent grant cover represents the physical document issued to inventors upon the granting of a patent.

The office has used fewer than a dozen basic designs since President George Washington granted the first patent in 1790, with previous designs featuring calligraphy, elaborate engravings, and high-quality typesetting, according to the agency.

The current design is more than 30 years old, and is one of two designs done in the past 100 years. 

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