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On Wednesday, December 15, 2021, at approximately 8:30 p.m. ET, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) proactively and deliberately shut down all external access to systems in light of a serious and time-sensitive concern related to Log4j vulnerabilities. Although this preventative measure impacted those seeking to file documents, the USPTO needed to shut down the systems to perform necessary maintenance to safeguard not only our infrastructure, but also the security of our filers’ data. The USPTO created a path for filers to continue to submit applications via email during the outage. Around 8:30 a.m. ET on Thursday, December 16, maintenance was completed and all external systems were restored.
In the new normal of continuous cyber threats, the USPTO will continue to actively monitor, prevent, and remediate any and all cybersecurity vulnerabilities to ensure the safety and security of our American intellectual property system.
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