USPTO Assignment: Cover Sheet, Fees, and Recording Deadline

To record a USPTO assignment, you submit the signed assignment document and a completed cover sheet through the USPTO’s online Assignment Center, pay any applicable fee, and the office enters the transfer into the public record. Do it within three months of the signing date. Under federal law, an unrecorded assignment can be voided by a later buyer who pays value, has no notice of your interest, and records first.¹²

What the Assignment Document Must Contain

The assignment itself is a written contract signed by the assignor. The USPTO does not publish a form for it, so most parties use an attorney-drafted agreement or a template. The office records a legible copy of whatever you submit.

For patents, the document has to identify the specific property. Use the patent number for an issued patent, the application number with series code and serial number for a pending application, or the international application number for a PCT filing that designates the United States. If the assignment is signed before the application is filed, identify it by the inventor’s name and the title of the invention.³

For trademarks, include each registration or application number. If the application number has not issued yet, submit a copy of the application or a reproduction of the mark along with an estimate of the filing date.⁴

If the document is not in English, include an English translation signed by the translator.⁵

Cover Sheet Requirements

Every recorded assignment needs a cover sheet, and the USPTO will return submissions that arrive without one. If a single document conveys both patents and trademarks, prepare a separate cover sheet for each type, each with its own copy of the document.⁶

Every cover sheet has to include:⁴

The full name of the conveying party.
The name and address of the receiving party.
A description of the interest being conveyed (assignment, merger, name change, and so on).
Every application, registration, or patent number covered by the document.
A correspondence address for USPTO communications about the recording.
The execution date of the assignment.
The signature of the person submitting the cover sheet. Electronic submissions accept a typed name between forward slashes, for example /Jane Smith/.

Trademark cover sheets add two more fields: the legal entity type and citizenship of the receiving party. If that party is a domestic partnership or joint venture, list the names and citizenship of every general partner or active member.⁴

The Goodwill Rule for Trademark Assignments

Trademark assignments carry a substantive requirement that patents do not: the mark can only be assigned together with the goodwill of the business connected to it.² A transfer without goodwill is an “assignment in gross,” and it voids the assignment entirely. The receiving party gets no right to use the mark and no right to enforce it.

Courts look for evidence that the new owner will use the mark on products or services substantially similar to the original owner’s. Transferring related business assets helps: customer lists, formulas, manufacturing processes, supplier contracts, or anything else tied to the goods or services sold under the mark. Where no assets change hands, the assignment can still survive if the new owner’s offerings are similar enough that consumers are not confused or harmed. Slap the mark on a completely different or lower-quality product line and a court can treat the mark as abandoned.

One further limit applies to intent-to-use applications filed under Section 1(b) of the Lanham Act. You cannot assign an ITU application until an amendment to allege use or a statement of use has been filed, unless the assignment goes to a successor of the applicant’s ongoing business.²

Filing Through Assignment Center

Both patent and trademark assignments are recorded through the USPTO’s Assignment Center at assignmentcenter.uspto.gov, which replaced the legacy EPAS and ETAS systems.⁷

You need a USPTO.gov account. After you create one, activate it through two-step authentication; the activation link expires in 48 hours. From the dashboard, click “Create new” and pick a patent or trademark assignment. The system steps you through the cover sheet fields: conveyance type, correspondence information, conveying party, receiving party, and property identification. Search for each patent or trademark by number and add it to the submission. At the upload step, attach the assignment document as a PDF or TIFF file up to 10 MB. Review the summary, sign electronically, and submit.⁸

If the office finds a defect, it sends a Notice of Non-Recordation with a link back to Assignment Center where you can fix the issues without starting over. Once the submission clears review, you receive a Notice of Recordation with the reel and frame number.

Recording Fees

Electronic patent assignment recording is free. Paper submissions cost $54 per property, so a single document covering five patents runs $270 on paper and nothing online.⁹

Trademark recording fees apply regardless of how you file. The first mark in a document costs $40, and each additional mark in the same document costs $25.⁹ An assignment covering one registration and three pending applications comes to $115.

The Three-Month Recording Deadline

Federal law gives you a three-month window from the execution date to record and preserve priority. The clock starts when the assignment is signed, not when you submit it.

For patents, 35 U.S.C. § 261 makes an unrecorded assignment void against a later purchaser who pays value, has no notice of the earlier transfer, and records first. Recording within three months of execution, or before the later purchase, defeats that risk.¹ For trademarks, 15 U.S.C. § 1060(a)(4) uses the same rule and the same three-month period.²

An assignment recorded late is still valid between the original parties. What you lose is priority against a third party. The classic scenario: a seller transfers the same property to two different buyers, and the second buyer records first without knowing about the earlier deal. If the first buyer missed the three-month window and the second buyer had no notice, the second buyer wins. Recording also creates prima facie evidence of proper execution, which helps in any later enforcement action.²

Fixing Errors After Recording

If a mistake is in the assignment document itself, such as a misspelled name or wrong patent number, file a corrective document. That is a copy of the original with the corrections marked, initialed, and dated by the assignor, along with a new cover sheet identifying the submission as corrective and citing the reel and frame number of the original recording.¹⁰

If the mistake is only on the cover sheet, file a corrected cover sheet as long as the error is apparent from comparing it to the recorded document. Include a copy of the original document and pay the recording fee again.¹⁰

The USPTO almost never removes a recorded assignment from the record. Its policy is to keep a complete history of claimed interests. Expungement petitions are granted only when normal corrective procedures cannot fix the problem and the integrity of the assignment records will not be affected.¹¹ Corrective filings receive their own reel and frame number, so the chain of title carries both the original entry and the correction.

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 35 USC 261 – Ownership; Assignment
2
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1060 – Assignment
3
eCFR. 37 CFR 3.21 – Identification of Patents and Patent Applications
4
eCFR. 37 CFR 3.31 – Cover Sheet Content
5
eCFR. 37 CFR 3.26 – English Language Requirement
6
eCFR. 37 CFR 3.28 – Cover Sheet Requirements
7
United States Patent and Trademark Office. Assignment Center Fully Replaces EPAS and ETAS for Patent and Trademark Assignment Submissions
8
United States Patent and Trademark Office. Assignment Center Training Guide – Patents
9
United States Patent and Trademark Office. USPTO Fee Schedule
10
United States Patent and Trademark Office. MPEP Section 323 – Procedures for Correcting Errors in Recorded Assignment Document
11
United States Patent and Trademark Office. Expungement of Papers