Practitioners who have been putting off migrating their current PKI digital certificates to their USPTO.gov accounts or sponsoring support staff received an early holiday gift from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Friday (in addition to the Office's designation of Christmas Eve as a "Federal holiday within the District of Columbia"), when the Office announced via a Patent Alert e-mail that it was delaying the date on which PKI certificates would be retired. USPTO Director Andrei Iancu had informed stakeholders in November that "[u]se of PKI certificates may no longer be available after December 31, 2018" (see "USPTO Director Issues Notice on New Authentication System for EFS-Web and Private PAIR"). In the Office's latest word on PKI certificate retirement, however, it has now indicated that "EFS-Web and Private PAIR users will no longer be able to authenticate using PKI certificates as of February 15."
Although the reprieve was not entirely unexpected, if you have delayed creating a USPTO.gov account, migrating your current PKI digital certificate to your USPTO.gov account, or sponsoring support staff, it may be a good idea to make those tasks part of your New Year's resolutions. As the Office indicated in October, the new authentication system for accessing the EFS-Web and Private PAIR is safer and simpler than the old system, allowing for access to multiple USPTO systems with one consolidated sign-in, eliminating the need to share credentials by providing practitioners and their support staff with their own USPTO.gov accounts, and helping resolve browser compatibility issues (see "USPTO Moving to New Authentication System for EFS-Web and Private PAIR"). The Office has noted that the new system will provide users with access to the EFS-Web and Private PAIR until the full release of Patent Center, the next generation tool that will replace the EFS-Web and Private PAIR in 2020.
The Office also announced the release of a migration tool in October, which allows existing PKI digital certificate holders to link their USPTO.gov accounts to their current PKI digital certificates. To migrate an existing PKI digital certificate, users must have a USPTO.gov account. Users who need to create a USPTO.gov account can do so by following the steps under the "Create a USPTO.gov Account" tab at the Office's authentication change webpage. Once a USPTO.gov account has been created, users can follow the steps under the "Migrate your PKI Certificate" tab at the Office's authentication change webpage (or refer to the Guide for Migration) to link that account to their PKI certificate. The Office notes that users should allow 1–2 business days after the migration steps are finished for the migration process to be completed. Once the process is completed, users will be able to sign into the EFS-Web or Private PAIR using their USPTO.gov account. Users should use the following new links to sign into the EFS-Web or Private PAIR using their USPRTO.gov accounts:
EFS-Web:
https://efs-my.uspto.gov/EFSWebUIRegistered/EFSWebRegistered
Private PAIR:
https://ppair-my.uspto.gov/pair/PrivatePair
Additional information regarding the new authentication process can be found in the Office's Patent Electronic System Access Document. This resource includes information about USPTO.gov accounts; two-step authentication; signing in and signing out from USPTO systems; Patent Electronic Access roles for practitioners, support staff, and inventors; suspension of accounts; authorization; authentication steps; the sponsorship process (by which practitioners can grant or remove sponsorship for support staff individuals to work under their direction and control); and the Office's verification policy and identity proofing of sponsored support staff. With respect to identity proofing, the Office has stated that "[e]ach practitioner will be responsible for verifying the identity of the person using any sponsored support Staff account."
When announcing the new authentication system in October, the Office cautioned practitioners that migration to link USPTO.gov accounts to PKI certificates should be completed by the end of October (although practitioners can still do so using the migration tool) and that sponsorship of support staff should be completed by the end of November (again, practitioners can still do so using the sponsorship tool that was released on November 1). With respect to sponsorship, the Office has emphasized that practitioners no longer have to share their credentials, and in fact, will no longer be permitted to share accounts with support staff, who will need to establish their own USPTO.gov accounts in order to access the EFS-Web Registered and Private PAIR. USPTO.gov accounts will be used as the first step to log into EFS-Web Registered and Private PAIR. The second step of the two-step authentication system will require users to choose to receive an e-mail or phone call which will provide a 6-digit code that is to be entered along with their USPTO.gov password (or use an authenticator app on their mobile phone to provide the additional secure verification). The Office's sponsorship tool, which allows practitioners to grant or remove sponsorship for support staff individuals (under the direction and control of sponsoring practitioners) to work on their behalf, can be accessed here.
Practitioners should familiarize themselves with the identify verification (or proofing) requirements of the new authentication system. Under the identity proofing and enrollment process, the identity evidence and attributes of users of the Office's Patent Electronic System are collected, uniquely resolved to a single identity within a given population or context, then validated and verified. Current PKI certificate holders who migrate their PKI certificates using the migration tool will be considered to have met the identity proofing requirements. However, for support staff being sponsored by practitioners, sponsoring practitioners are "responsible for proofing the identity of the person being sponsored," and "[e]ach sponsoring practitioner will establish a procedure for identity proofing sponsored users and maintain a record of that procedure." Additional details regarding identity verification requirements can be found in the Office's Patent Electronic System Access Document.
Users requiring assistance to create a USPTO.gov account should call the USPTO Contact Center (UCC) at 800-786-9199. Users requiring assistance with migration should contact the Patent Electronic Business Center at ebc@uspto.gov or 866-217-9197. Questions or comments related to the new authentication method may be sent to eMod@uspto.gov. The Office has also been offering several informational sessions on authentication changes; a schedule of upcoming sessions (including three in January and four more in February) can be found at the "Information sessions" tab at the Office's authentication change webpage. A list of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) about the authentication change for EFS-Web and Private PAIR can be found here.
