Every USPTO system relating to assignments is broken today.
It will be recalled (blog article) that the USPTO originally announced that September 27, 2025 was the big day that the USPTO would shut down the two familiar assignment search systems, forcing users over to a new assignment search function in Assignment Center.
It will be recalled that on shut-down day (September 27) the USPTO blinked and quietly announced that shut-down day was being postponed to Monday, October 20, 2025.
Since then, the USPTO has elaborated on how it plans to accomplish this transition. The new plan is to shut everything down completely on Wednesday, October 15, 2025. No assignment system — not the familiar legacy systems, not the new system — nothing will work from Wednesday October 15, 2025 to Monday October 20, 2025.
And indeed that is how things stand today, Thursday, October 16, 2025. Every USPTO system relating to assignments is broken today. It seems every USPTO system relating to assignments will be broken tomorrow, Friday, October 17. It seems the same will be the case on Saturday, October 18 and Sunday, October 19.
It will be recalled that assignments need to be recorded within three months of the date of execution (35 U.S. Code § 261, 15 U.S. Code § 1060). If you happen to have in hand an assignment that was executed on July 16, 2025, then it needs to be recorded by today, October 16, 2025. It looks to me as though it is impossible to do such a recordation today, given that the USPTO has shut down Assignment Center.
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