[*Updated 11/4/2015 to include new Google Patents announcement]
“... the USPTO has been in the business of open data for a very long time. ... If we are going to live up to our mission to disseminate information about patents and trademarks, it requires an agency-wide commitment to the principles of open data—a commitment that the USPTO has made. ”
November 1995: USPTO announces access to patent data via the internet
May 2003: USPTO announces that patent application records will be maintained in electronic form
June 2003: USPTO summarizes Image File Wrapper (IFW) system
February 2004: Eastern District of Texas moves to ECF system for litigations, including patent cases
August 2004: USPTO announces internet access to patent applications
October 2005: USPTO announces production environment for EFS-Web platform
December 2006: Google launches a free patent search service
January 2008: Central District of California moves to ECF system for litigations, including patent cases
June 2010: Google announces access to more patent data as part of the USPTO initiative to provide public access to USPTO bulk data
September 2012: USPTO announces Patent Review Processing System (PRPS) for post-grant challenges before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB)
June 2013: Reed Technology and USPTO announce initiative for continued public access to USPTO bulk data
July 2015: Google announces update to Google Patents to include Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC) codes and integration of Google Scholar [Updated 11/4/2015]
**September 1988: Judicial Conference of the United States announced Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER)