In Patentscope and ePCT, WIPO offers “permalinks”. These are web links that you can copy and use elsewhere, such as intranets and emails to clients. Similarly in European Patent Register, EPO offers such web links.
Indeed the TSDR system of USPTO offers URLs that can be used this way. So why doesn’t USPTO offer such links?
Alert list member Henry Blanco White points out that USPTO provides complicated instructions for constructing links to particular records in the USPTO Patent Full-Text and Image Database. It’s not simply a link that you can right-click on and save. But it is apparently a way to construct a link.
USPTO needs to offer such links in Public PAIR and in Private PAIR. USPTO also needs to offer such links in the Patent Application Full Text and Image Database.
(Updated June 23 to reflect that USPTO does offer constructable links in the USPTO Patent Full-Text and Image Database.)
But the USPTO does provide instructions for you to hand-write the URL, though obscurely filed under “PATFT Operational Notices and Status”, at http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/help/status.htm#URL. (I have never actually dared to try writing one of these to see if it works.)
Thank you for posting. Yes, USPTO does offer constructable links for the USPTO Patent Full-Text and Image Database. Now USPTO needs to do the same for Private PAIR and Public PAIR and the Patent Application Full Text and Image Database.