USPTO Selects Florida for its Latest Community Engagement Office in the Southeast Region
22-Sep-2026
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Source : The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO)
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Visits : 57
Agency’s most recent innovation ecosystem partnership to serve the Florida High Tech Corridor and surrounding region at the University of South Florida
ALEXANDRIA - America’s Innovation Agency, the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), announced the University of South Florida (USF) as the location for its newest community engagement office (CEO) to broaden the agency’s outreach efforts in the Southeast Region, according to the official website of USPTO.
The new CEO will be housed at USF’s Research Park in Tampa and will serve the intellectual property (IP) protection needs of the area’s local inventors, entrepreneurs, small businesses, and other stakeholders, including students and faculty at other universities in the region.
The new office will work closely with IP practitioners and services, startups, and job-growth accelerators, leveraging existing partnership infrastructures rather than building costly new facilities from scratch. The CEO will also collaborate with local STEM organizations on outreach and educational programming.
"The core idea is engagement—engagement directly through USPTO-enabled nodes at the heart of local startup, university, incubator, and innovation ecosystems. By doing so, we’ll be 'at the top of the funnel' for ideas, brands, and inventions and by uniquely complementing our examination infrastructure with a nimble, cost-effective, and deeply embedded presence,” said USPTO Director John A. Squires.
The USF CEO will provide patent and trademark resources to the Florida High Tech Corridor, founded in 1996 by USF, the University of Central Florida, and the University of Florida. The Corridor encompasses 23 counties in central Florida stretching coast-to-coast and is home to major aerospace and aviation companies as well as a growing cluster of semiconductor-related technology companies.
Florida’s Tampa Bay metro area includes nearly 80 colleges, universities, and technical schools, enabling a broad base of research and educational partners convenient access to the USF CEO. Additionally, the area is home to the headquarters and satellite offices for many corporations spanning the technical, financial, and pharmaceutical sectors. The USF CEO aims to serve these industries and others in the area with IP programming onsite and virtually.
A Tier 1 (R1) research university, USF’s total research expenditures reached approximately $522 million in fiscal year 2024. Over the past several years, USF has ranked in the top 30 of U.S. public research universities for new utility patents granted. Some of the top initiatives leading innovation at USF entail cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, therapeutics, and medical devices. The university’s notable research centers include the Global Center for Hearing & Speech Research, the USF Center for Urban Transportation Research, and the USF Health Institute for Translational Virology and Innovation.
“We are pleased that the University of South Florida was selected for this opportunity, which reflects USF’s strong reputation for research, innovation, and the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Tampa Bay,” said USF President Moez Limayem. “Having this resource embedded at USF will strengthen our ability to support inventors and entrepreneurs across our university as well as through the Tampa Bay region.”
In addition to patent filing assistance, the USF CEO will assist entrepreneurs and small businesses with information about federal trademark registration. Assistance also extends to name, image, and likeness (NIL) protections for those seeking to monetize their personal brand, particularly student-athletes at the area’s three NCAA Division I universities and influencers.
USPTO’s CEOs provide convenient access to IP education and outreach for individual inventors, small businesses, veterans, low-income populations, students, and rural populations to engage stakeholders earlier in the application process. These offices carry out the strategic direction of the USPTO’s Office of Public Engagement and ensure the USPTO’s initiatives and programs are tailored to each area’s unique ecosystem of industries and stakeholders.
In February 2026, the USPTO issued a request for comments seeking public input regarding the locations for one or more community outreach offices (now referred to as community engagement offices) in the Southeast Region, which the USPTO was directed to establish under the Unleashing American Innovators Act of 2022 (UAIA). This region includes Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas. The USF CEO in Tampa joins the Southeast Region CEOs recently established in Atlanta, Georgia; Huntsville, Alabama; and Raleigh, North Carolina.
The announcement of the USF CEO also marks the agency’s sixth innovation ecosystem university partnership within the past year since USPTO Director Squires began his tenure. Along with the aforementioned Southeast Region offices, this year the USPTO opened the Mountain West Community Engagement Office in Salt Lake City, Utah, and the Northwest Frontier Community Engagement Office in Bozeman, Montana. Together with the Northern New England Community Engagement Office in Durham, New Hampshire, that opened in 2025 and was statutorily established to serve Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire, the USPTO will operate a network of seven CEOs.
The UAIA mandated the establishment of four outreach offices by 2027, which the USPTO has duly achieved a full year early for America’s innovators. Because of the immediate success of the agency’s community outreach model to meet innovators where they are, the USPTO continues to assess its university partnerships and expand its national footprint. The agency recently sought public input via a request for comments to consider locations for one or more CEOs in its Southwest Region, which encompasses Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Missouri. Along with the agency’s five regional offices and over 100 Patent and Trademark Resource Centers, the USPTO’s CEOs help support America’s IP-intensive industries, which employ one-third of the nation’s workforce and account for 44% of U.S. gross domestic product.