MPEP and TMEP API: Patent and Trademark Examining Procedure You Can Query

Short answer: the MPEP and the TMEP are the USPTO's own instruction books for its examiners, and you can query both over an API by manual section number instead of scraping uspto.gov. The Manual of Patent Examining Procedure has 29 chapters (100 to 2900) and its current edition is the Ninth Edition, Revision 01.2024. The Trademark Manual of Examining Procedure has 19 chapters (100 to 1900) and its current edition is May 2026. Neither is law. Both describe what the USPTO tells its examiners to do, which is why practitioners cite them alongside the statute. This post covers what they are, how they cite, how to filter them, and how to walk from an office action to the statute and rule underneath it in one chain.

Reviewed and corrected on 12 October 2026. This is general information, not legal advice.

TL;DR

• The MPEP has 29 chapters (current: Ninth Edition, Revision 01.2024); the TMEP has 19 chapters (current: May 2026). Both are USPTO guidance, not binding law, and both are the operating manual an examiner follows.
• They cite by manual section, not by CFR part. "MPEP 2106" and "TMEP 1207.01" are addresses inside a manual, so a CFR-shaped parser won't find them.
• US Copyright Office Circulars are the third piece of the IP guidance set: short numbered explainers written for applicants rather than examiners.
• All three sit behind corpusType=AGENCY_GUIDANCE and split with source=mpep, source=tmep, and source=copyright_circular. The live GET /boards registry lists the MPEP and TMEP on a board with a monthly cadence.
• The useful move is the chain, not the lookup. An office action cites a manual section; the manual section rests on a statute in 35 U.S.C. or 15 U.S.C. and a rule in 37 C.F.R. You want all three in one call sequence.
• Earlier text is a reconstruction. asOf=YYYY-MM-DD on the section body endpoint rebuilds earlier text from the changes we recorded and flags isBounded when the answer rests on when capture began. For the MPEP as it read in 2019, the USPTO's own archived revisions remain the authority.

The IP entry in our federal agency guidance series.

For related coverage, see Federal Agency Guidance API: 53 Sub-Regulatory Sources in One Endpoint, USCIS Policy Manual API: Query Immigration Guidance by Volume, Part and Chapter for the same manual-shaped problem in immigration, and Export Controls API: BIS Advisory Opinions and DDTC Commodity Jurisdiction Determinations.

Disclosure: we build Vaquill AI. Edition names, chapter counts and revision dates below come from uspto.gov, read on 12 October 2026. The corpus totals are the figures we publish for this API. The GET /us/statutes/coverage endpoint returns totals and the per-source list; it needs an API key but costs no credits.

What the MPEP actually is

The MPEP is the book a patent examiner is trained on and reviewed against. It tells the examiner how to read a claim, when to issue a restriction requirement, what a proper 35 U.S.C. 112 rejection looks like, and how to write the rejection up.

It is published by the USPTO, revised on the Office's own schedule, and organized in a 29-chapter spine keyed to hundreds-blocks, plus appendices. Chapter 700 covers examination of applications. Chapter 2100 covers patentability, which is where many prosecution arguments live.

The MPEP is not law. It is the Office's guidance on 35 U.S.C. and 37 C.F.R., and the Office says so itself (see the Foreword quoted below). Examiners are told to follow it.

That gap is the reason it matters to a docketing or prosecution tool. If you want to anticipate the next office action, the statute tells you what is possible and the MPEP tells you how the Office instructs its examiners to apply it.

Which edition is current? On 12 October 2026 the USPTO's MPEP page named the Ninth Edition, Revision 01.2024, published November 2024 and "up-to-date as of January 31, 2024." The same page says changes after that date "have not been incorporated into the current MPEP." It lists separate notices that supersede parts of it, including an advance notice of change dated December 5, 2025 "in light of Ex Parte Desjardins," and a "Subsequent Publications" list it describes as current as of July 20, 2026. Read the section you rely on and that list before you cite.

MPEP 2106 is the canonical example. It is the subject matter eligibility section, and it is where the Office translates a line of Supreme Court cases into a decision procedure an examiner can run. A response that argues eligibility without addressing 2106 on its own terms is arguing past the person reading it.

A short history

The MPEP is older than most of the people reading it. The USPTO's own MPEP page lists the editions: first in November 1949, second in November 1953, third in November 1961, fourth in June 1979, fifth in August 1983, sixth in January 1995, seventh in July 1998, eighth in August 2001, and ninth in March 2014, with revisions to the ninth edition since. The same page links a PDF archive of previous publications from 1948 to 2023, which is a genuinely useful thing for a government to host. A column by Julie Burke, Ph.D., who describes herself as an expert witness on patent office procedures, notes that the 1949 first edition ran to 215 printed pages (IPWatchdog, March 2023). It runs to thousands of pages in print now.

The Office is plain about the legal weight. Its foreword says the Manual "has been designated guidance document USPTO-P-1" and that its guidance "does not have the force and effect of law" and is "not meant to bind the public in any way." The same foreword says examiners "are governed by the applicable statutes, rules, decisions, and orders and instructions issued by the Director of the USPTO and other officials authorized by the Director of the USPTO." That's the two-sided situation in one paragraph.

A quick story: the perpetual motion machine

The manual is more entertaining than its reputation. MPEP 2107.01 covers general principles for utility rejections, and part II is titled "Wholly Inoperative Inventions; 'Incredible' Utility." It says an inoperative invention "is not a 'useful' invention in the meaning of the patent law," and lists past cases that include a perpetual motion machine and a cold fusion process. It then tells examiners to be careful: they "should not label an asserted utility 'incredible,' 'speculative' or otherwise unless it is clear that a rejection based on 'lack of utility' is proper."

In a 2015 Hacker News thread, a commenter answered the claim that checking whether an invention works isn't the examiner's job with a link to exactly this section (lisper, Hacker News, May 2015). The manual was right there for anyone who looked.

What the TMEP actually is

The TMEP is the same idea on the trademark side: 19 chapters (100 to 1900) plus appendices, written for examining attorneys at the USPTO. USPTO's TMEP archive page said on 12 October 2026 that the current version is May 2026. Since November 2023 the TMEP has been reissued every May and November, so the edition you cite can be six months old.

It covers what makes a specimen acceptable (TMEP 904), how to handle a disclaimer (TMEP 1213), and the refusal grounds. TMEP 1207.01 is the likelihood-of-confusion section.

The legal weight is as stated in the TMEP's own Foreword: the guidelines "do not have the force and effect of law," were "developed as a matter of internal office management," and are "not intended to create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable by any party against the office." The Foreword also says examining attorneys will be governed by the statutes, the Trademark Rules of Practice, decisions, and orders and notices. In practice it is what the letter you just received was written from.

The third piece: US Copyright Office Circulars

Copyright rounds out the IP guidance set, and it works differently. Alongside a long practice manual, the Copyright Office publishes Circulars: short, numbered, plain-language explainers on one registration or practice topic each. The Copyright Office's circulars page lists them, starting with Circular 1, Copyright Basics.

A Circular isn't a rule and not a manual section. It is the Office telling applicants how it handles a category of work, what a deposit needs to contain, and which application path fits. Circular 1, "Copyright Basics", is the front door of the set.

Our agency guidance coverage page lists 58 circulars as of its September 2026 measurement. Long documents are split into several retrieval passages in the index, so a passage count would be higher than a document count.

One boundary worth naming. Circulars are the short public explainers, and the Compendium of U.S. Copyright Office Practices is the long administrative manual for registration and recordation practice. They are separate document sets. The Compendium is its own source, copyright_compendium, outside this 58-circular collection, so check coverage for its current scope before you build against it.

The three manuals side by side

All three share corpusType=AGENCY_GUIDANCE. The MPEP and TMEP sit on the same board in the GET /boards registry. The corpus types reference lists every token the API accepts.

The citation form is the integration problem

This is where most IP tooling breaks, so it is worth being precise.

A CFR citation is title-part-section: 37 C.F.R. 1.111. A US Code citation is title-section: 35 U.S.C. 101. Both have a shape a parser can key on, and both map cleanly onto a titleNumber plus part filter.

A manual citation has none of that. "MPEP 2106" is a bare number that is meaningful only inside the MPEP. It isn't a CFR part, it isn't a title, and it doesn't appear in the US Code.

Manual sections also nest by suffix. The MPEP goes to forms like 2106.04(a)(2), and the TMEP goes deeper still, with lettered and roman-numeral subsections hanging off a section like 1207.01, such as 1207.01(b)(vi)(B). A regex written for \d+\s+U\.S\.C\.\s+\d+ will find none of it.

The practical consequence: if your citation extractor was built for statutes and regulations, it is silently dropping every manual cite in every office action you ingest. That is usually the highest-value citation in the document, and the Bluebook forms a parser can and cannot handle is the longer argument.

Read that diagram bottom-up and you have the response strategy. The examiner reasons down from the manual. You answer at the manual, then reach for the statute when the manual is being applied past its own terms.

Corpus mechanics

The whole federal agency guidance corpus is 96,966 sections across 53 named sources, and the three IP sources here are three of those. Everything is reached through one search endpoint.

Base URL is https://api.vaquill.ai/api/v1. Auth is a bearer key. The search call costs 4 credits and takes corpusType plus source as the two filters that matter here. You can run it in the API playground first. We ran the searches in this post on 12 October 2026 through our MCP client, which sends the same parameters as the HTTP call.

curl -X POST https://api.vaquill.ai/api/v1/us/statutes/search \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer vq_key_..." \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "query": "abstract idea judicial exception eligibility analysis",
    "corpusType": "AGENCY_GUIDANCE",
    "source": "mpep",
    "matchType": "any",
    "limit": 10,
    "excerptChars": 600
  }'

The top three hits on 12 October 2026 were MPEP § 2106.04(a) (Abstract Ideas), MPEP § 2106.04 (Eligibility Step 2A: Whether a Claim is Directed to a Judicial Exception) and MPEP § 2106.04(a)(3) (Tentative Abstract Ideas), each with source: "mpep".

One behavior worth knowing before you wire this into a job: the OpenAPI description says an unrecognized source value is rejected with a 422, so a typo such as source: "mpeps" produces an error instead of a confident empty list. We did not send a bad value in our October 2026 review, so check the error reference for the exact body. The valid codes are in the source enum of the spec, and mpep, tmep and copyright_circular are all in it.

Paging is cut from a single ranking, so results don't repeat or vanish between pages. limit maxes at 50 and offset at 70, so a full sweep of a manual is a job for the section ids you collect, not for deep paging.

Worked example: an office action to its authority chain

Here is the sequence a prosecution tool should run when an office action lands citing MPEP 2106.

Step 1: find the manual section. Search the guidance corpus scoped to the MPEP.

{
  "query": "2106 subject matter eligibility",
  "corpusType": "AGENCY_GUIDANCE",
  "source": "mpep",
  "matchType": "any",
  "limit": 5
}

Each hit comes back with an actId, the citation, an excerpt, and a sourceUrl on uspto.gov. In our 12 October 2026 run the top hit was actId: "MPEP_S2106", citation MPEP § 2106, section title "Patent Subject Matter Eligibility", chapter: "2100". The MPEP sourceUrl was a per-section page on uspto.gov; for the TMEP, the sourceUrl on the hits we checked pointed to the USPTO's zipped May 2026 HTML edition rather than to one section. MPEP hits carried currentThrough: null, and which MPEP revision our index holds is not verified in our October 2026 review, so check the section's revision indicator on uspto.gov before you cite it. Read the actId off the response and store it. The API reference tells you to take ids from a response rather than build them by hand.

Step 2: pull the full text. With the id in hand:

GET /us/statutes/section/{actId}
GET /us/statutes/section/{actId}/body

The first gives you the section with its metadata (2 credits). The second gives you the body text (6 credits), which is what you want if you are feeding a model rather than rendering a page.

Step 3: get the statute underneath. MPEP 2106 is the Office's procedure for 35 U.S.C. 101, so pull the statute itself out of the USC corpus.

{
  "query": "inventions patentable process machine manufacture composition of matter",
  "corpusType": "USC",
  "titleNumber": "35",
  "limit": 5
}

The USC corpus holds 60,494 sections, and each result carries a currentThrough date. In our 12 October 2026 run, 35 U.S.C. 101 came back with currentThrough: 2026-09-11 and a sourceUrl on uscode.house.gov. Report that date with the answer, so a reviewing attorney knows how current the text is.

Step 4: get the rule underneath. Procedure for replying lives in 37 C.F.R. Part 1, inside the CFR corpus.

{
  "query": "reply to a non-final office action requirements",
  "corpusType": "CFR",
  "titleNumber": "37",
  "part": "1",
  "limit": 5
}

The CFR corpus is 222,311 sections and, per the live GET /boards registry on 12 October 2026, refreshes daily. The search above returned 37 C.F.R. 1.111 (Reply by applicant or patent owner to a non-final Office action) first. For a docketing product, a daily cadence on the rules is the right property: rule changes that move a deadline should not wait a month.

Step 5: hand the model all three. You now have the manual section, the statute, and the rule, each with its own source URL. That is a citation-checkable answer instead of a plausible one.

The chain is the product. Any tool can retrieve MPEP 2106. Retrieving 2106 alongside the statute it implements and the rule that governs the reply is what makes a drafted response defensible.

What practitioners say

People who work with the manual have mixed feelings, and both sides are worth reading. One Hacker News commenter, asked whether a person could learn to write their own patent claims, pointed to the MPEP and called it "a reference book, not really something you can read start-to-finish" (teachingaway, Hacker News, September 2014). That's fair. It's a book you search.

The sharper criticism is about timing. In her IPWatchdog column, Burke argues that between November 2013 and March 2023 about 25 percent of the time, people relying on the published manual were working from instructions that a later manual would retroactively overwrite. Her summary: "Clarity is lacking when examiners and patent practitioners are literally not working off the same page." That's one expert's analysis, and the Office would frame it differently. Its manual page says the current revision is up to date only as of a stated date (January 31, 2024 on 12 October 2026) and links to updated information on anything later. Both facts point the same way. Treat the manual as the best written record, and check what changed after its cutoff.

Monitoring: the part that actually changes

The MPEP and TMEP move on the Office's revision schedule, not on notice-and-comment. A revision can change examiner practice without a single word of 37 C.F.R. changing.

Changes captured on each refresh become change events, and the refresh cadence is set per board. GET /boards costs no credits and hands back every watchable source with fields including cadence and lastRetrievedAt. The MPEP and TMEP sit on the agency_manuals board, shared with the USCIS Policy Manual, the Justice Manual, the IRM and the WHD Field Operations Handbook. On 12 October 2026 that board showed a monthly cadence, and a lastRetrievedAt of 2026-09-27. The USPTO can publish between our refreshes (the TMEP's last two editions came in November 2025 and May 2026), so read lastRetrievedAt before you treat a quiet period as no change, and check uspto.gov when the date matters.

From there you can create a watch, list changes, and pull a per-section diff. For an IP practice, the high-value watches are narrow: the eligibility block of the MPEP, the refusal-grounds block of the TMEP, and 37 C.F.R. Parts 1 and 2.

There is a related read on how change detection and alerts work if you want the mechanics, and a longer piece on diffs and false positives.

Who this is wrong for

Say the honest part. This corpus is examining procedure and public guidance. It isn't the adjudicative record.

• It is not PTAB or TTAB decisions. Inter partes review outcomes and opposition proceedings aren't here.
• It is not Federal Circuit case law. MPEP 2106 summarizes a line of cases; it doesn't contain them.
• It is not file wrappers. Nothing about a specific application's prosecution history is in a corpus of manuals.
• It is not a substitute for reading the revision notes when the Office issues a new MPEP revision.

If your product needs PTAB final written decisions, this isn't the dependency you are looking for. If your product needs to know what an examiner is required to do before writing a 101 rejection, it is.

FAQ

Is the MPEP legally binding?

No. The MPEP's own Foreword says its guidance "does not have the force and effect of law" and is "not meant to bind the public in any way." It is the USPTO's guidance to its own examiners, not a statute in 35 U.S.C. or a rule in 37 C.F.R. The Foreword also describes the Manual as containing the procedures examiners "are required or authorized to follow," which is why it drives much of what happens at the prosecution stage.

What is the difference between the MPEP and the TMEP?

Both are USPTO examining manuals, split by right. The MPEP covers patent examination in 29 chapters, and its current edition on uspto.gov is the Ninth Edition, Revision 01.2024. The TMEP covers trademark examination in 19 chapters, and its current version is May 2026. The TMEP includes refusal grounds like likelihood of confusion at TMEP 1207.01.

How do you cite an MPEP section?

By manual section number, with no title or part: "MPEP 2106". Subsections hang off that number with letters and numerals, so a cite can look like MPEP 2106.04(a)(2). The API's citation strings add a section sign, as in MPEP § 2106.04(a). This is why a citation parser built for the CFR or the US Code misses manual cites entirely.

What is a US Copyright Office Circular?

A Circular is a short, numbered explainer the Copyright Office publishes on one registration or practice topic, written for applicants rather than for internal staff. Circular 1 covers copyright basics. Our coverage page lists 58 circulars as of its September 2026 measurement.

Can I get the MPEP as it read on a past date?

To a degree. Add asOf with a calendar date to the body request for an MPEP section and you get back a version rebuilt from our recorded change history, along with an asOf block naming the change it rests on. It is a reconstruction rather than an archive, so treat the text as a lead. If the date is earlier than our capture, the block says so through isBounded or returns unavailable. Amendment history, a yearFrom and yearTo currency filter, and diffs on watched sources round it out. For a prior revision you will cite, check the USPTO's own archived revisions.

How often does this data refresh?

Each board refreshes on its own schedule, and GET /boards (no credits) reports the cadence for every watchable one. On 12 October 2026 the board carrying the MPEP and TMEP showed a monthly cadence with a last retrieval on 2026-09-27, and the board carrying the Copyright Circulars (federal agency guidance) also showed monthly. The CFR underneath them refreshes daily. US Code results carry a currentThrough field; ours showed 2026-09-11 for 35 U.S.C. 101.

Do I need separate API calls for the manual, the statute, and the regulation?

Yes, and that is deliberate. Each call is one search against one corpus, scoped by corpusType, so the chain from MPEP 2106 to 35 U.S.C. 101 to 37 C.F.R. Part 1 is three scoped calls rather than one fuzzy one. Each result carries its own official source URL, so the resulting answer is checkable line by line.

Are PTAB and TTAB decisions included?

No. This corpus is examining procedure and agency guidance, not adjudicative decisions. PTAB inter partes review outcomes, TTAB opposition decisions, and Federal Circuit opinions are all outside it.

Why does the passage count differ from the section count?

A section is one citable item with an actId. Long documents are split into several retrieval passages so semantic search can hit the right part of a long text, so a passage count runs higher than a section count. Use section counts when you size a job.

What happens if I send an invalid source value?

Per the OpenAPI description, an unrecognized source value is rejected with a 422 instead of matching nothing, so a typo in a nightly job fails loudly instead of reporting an empty but successful run. The valid codes are the source enum in the spec.

Where to start

If you are building IP tooling, the first call to make is the coverage endpoint (no credits, API key required), then one scoped search against source=mpep with a query drawn from a real office action you already have. You will know inside ten minutes whether the retrieval quality clears your bar.

Priyansh Khodiyar

Co-Founder & CTO

Priyansh leads engineering and AI at Vaquill AI: the pipelines that pull statutes, regulations and court rules from every US jurisdiction's official publisher, and the REST API, MCP server and open dataset that serve them.