The United States Patent and Trademark office will remain open during the government shutdown that began October 1, 2013. The Office will remain open, using prior year reserve fee collections to operate as usual for approximately four weeks. If the federal government shutdown should continue long enough for the reserve fee collections to be exhausted, the Office will shutdown, although IT infrastructure and other functions would continue to work to accept new applications.

Additionally, the 18th annual Independent Inventor Conference at the USPTO that was scheduled for October 11-12 has been cancelled.