Trove of Patent Data ‘Possibly Exposed’ in Federal Tech Gaffe

Nearly seven years of unpublished, protected patent application information was potentially exposed to the public in a federal database due to a computer configuration error, according to the US Patent and Trademark Office.

The PTO disabled the portions of the Patent Center’s Assignments page on Aug. 1 after a stakeholder notified the agency that information including patent application titles, numbers and inventors were “potentially accessible,” PTO Chief Information Officer Jamie Holcombe said in a noticeThursday. Application specifications “including claims and drawings” were not exposed, he said.

The office said it began notifying potentially impacted applicants, stakeholders, and the public ...