OLIA (superseded): Office for Legislative and International Affairs - currently known as Administrator for External Affairs, composed of Office of International Relations, Office of Congressional Relations, and Office of Enforcement.
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OIPE: Office of Initial Patent Examination.
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OIPC: Office of International Patent Cooperation.
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OIG Office of the Inspector General: Fifty-seven statutory OIGs were created by an act of Congress in 1978 to independently detect fraud or instances of waste, abuse or misuse of federal funds and identify operational deficiencies within each of the Departments.
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OHR: Office of Human Resources provides the leadership, policies, programs, services and systems necessary to meet the human resources requirements of the United States Patent and Trademark Office workforce.
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OHIM: Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market.
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OGC: The Office of the General Counsel is concerned with defense of agency decisions in court and administrative tribunals, internal agency legal advice, and regulation of persons practicing before the USPTO.
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Official Action (Patents): An action taken by a patent examiner, usually in the form of an office action or final rejection, during the examination process.
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Office of Patent Application Processing (OPAP): The office that performs all initial processing for new applications to ensure they are ready for animation.
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Office of Origin (trademarks): The government trademark office in a country that is a member of the Madrid Protocol. For applicants who file for an extension of protection of an international registration to the United States under Trademark Act Section 66(a), the country of the office of origin is where the applicant is a national, domiciliary, or has a real and effective industrial or commercial establishment.
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Office of Indirect Filing: The office of the applicant's Contracting Party through which an international design application under the Hague Agreement may be filed.
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Office Action Summary (Patent): A written communication from a patent examiner outlining any rejections or objections to claims in a patent application.
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OC: Office Correspondence is a software program used by patent examiners to generate office actions. The OC system was phased in to replace the current system entitled Office Action Correspondence System (OACS) during fiscal year (FY) 2018.
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Obviousness-Type Double Patenting (ODP): A doctrine that prevents a patent owner from obtaining multiple patents for the same invention.
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OBRA: Omnibus Budget and Reconciliation Act of 1990, which mandated that the USPTO become fully supported by user fees to fund its operations.
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OBI: Originating Beneficiary Information is the informational portion of a wire (electronic) transfer of funds. It is a necessary and important element, providing the USPTO information as to why the "wire" was sent, by whom, and how to apply the payment.
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Oath: A term very similar to a declaration, but also used to verify information. It identifies the patent application with its applicant and must include 1) name 2) city and state of residence (if U.S.) or 2a) country of residence (if foreign), 3) country of citizenship for each applicant on the patent 4) official mailing address of each applicant on the patent. This document must include a statement of whether the subject of the patent was a sole or joint invention. It must be signed by all inventors and verified by a witness.
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OACS: Office Action Correspondence System is a software program used by patent examiners to generate office actions. The OACS system was phased out and replaced by the Office Correspondence (OC) system during fiscal year (FY) 2018.
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NPL Non-Patent Literature (patent): Documents and publications that are not patents or published patent applications but are cited as references for being relevant in a patent prosecution, such as abstracts, scientific journal articles, other scholarly works (e.g., a doctoral thesis) newspapers, magazine articles, etc.
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Novelty Requirement: The requirement that an invention must be new or different from prior art in order to be patented.
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