Contact

Intellectual Property Authority serves as a reference resource covering U.S. intellectual property law, including patent, copyright, trademark, and trade secret frameworks administered by agencies such as the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and the U.S. Copyright Office. This page describes how to direct substantive questions, feedback, or research inquiries to the appropriate channel, what information assists in routing a message efficiently, and what response timelines are realistic. No legal advice is provided through this channel — correspondence is editorial and informational in nature only.

How to reach this office

Correspondence directed to Intellectual Property Authority reaches the editorial team responsible for the reference content published on this domain. This team handles questions about page accuracy, coverage gaps, citation disputes, and requests for clarification on published material related to U.S. intellectual property doctrine.

The primary contact method is the web form accessible from this page. For matters requiring document attachment — such as flagging a specific regulatory citation that has changed, referencing a USPTO rule update, or providing a link to a published court decision — the form supports file and URL attachment fields.

Correspondence submitted through the form is logged with a timestamp and assigned a reference identifier automatically. Retaining that identifier is the most efficient way to follow up on a submitted message.

Service area covered

Intellectual Property Authority covers U.S. national scope across the four primary intellectual property domains:

1. Patent law — governed by 35 U.S.C. § 1 et seq. and administered by the USPTO, including utility, design, and plant patents
2. Copyright law — governed by 17 U.S.C. § 101 et seq. and administered by the U.S. Copyright Office, covering original works of authorship fixed in a tangible medium
3. Trademark law — governed by the Lanham Act (15 U.S.C. § 1051 et seq.) and administered by the USPTO, covering marks used in commerce
4. Trade secret law — governed at the federal level by the Defend Trade Secrets Act (18 U.S.C. § 1836 et seq.), with parallel state-level protections in the 48 jurisdictions that have adopted some form of the Uniform Trade Secrets Act (UTSA)

The editorial scope does not extend to international IP treaty administration, foreign patent prosecution, or jurisdiction-specific state trademark filings. Questions touching those areas may be acknowledged but will receive limited substantive response.

A useful distinction for routing: questions about how IP law works (doctrine, process, regulatory framework) fall within editorial scope; questions about what to do in a specific situation (legal strategy, filing decisions, enforcement choices) are outside that scope and require consultation with a licensed attorney.

What to include in your message

The quality and specificity of an incoming message directly determines whether a useful response is possible. Messages missing key context are held pending clarification, which extends response time.

For accuracy corrections or citation disputes:
- The exact URL or section heading of the page in question
- The specific claim, figure, or citation believed to be inaccurate
- The named public source (agency document, statute, published court decision) supporting the correction — for example, a reference to a specific USPTO examination guideline or a Federal Circuit opinion with full citation

For coverage gap requests:
- The IP domain involved (patent, copyright, trademark, or trade secret)
- A description of the topic, including any relevant statutory section, regulatory body, or published standard
- Whether the topic is addressed anywhere in the existing reference pages, such as Key Dimensions and Scopes of Intellectual Property or Regulatory Context for Intellectual Property

For general research inquiries:
- A concise statement of the question — no more than 3 sentences
- Confirmation that the question is informational rather than legal advice-seeking
- Any prior reference sources already consulted, including agency publications or statutory text

Messages submitted without a subject classification take an average of 2 additional business days to route compared to those that clearly identify themselves as a correction, gap request, or inquiry.

Response expectations

Editorial correspondence is handled in batches. The standard acknowledgment window is 3 business days from submission. Substantive responses to correction requests — those requiring editorial review against a cited source — take between 5 and 10 business days depending on complexity and source availability.

Response scope by message type:

Corrections validated against authoritative public sources — such as the USPTO's Manual of Patent Examining Procedure (MPEP) or a Copyright Office Compendium of U.S. Copyright Office Practices entry — are prioritized for the next scheduled editorial update cycle. Pages with confirmed errors receive a revision flag within 48 hours of validation, even if the full editorial update takes longer to publish.

Correspondence that cannot be matched to any page on this domain, or that falls outside the four covered IP domains listed above, will receive a single redirect response directing the sender to an appropriate federal agency resource or the How to Get Help for Intellectual Property reference page.

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