An oath or declaration is a formal statement that must be made by the inventor in a non-provisional application. Each inventor must sign an oath or declaration that includes certain statements required by law and the USPTO rules, including the statement that he or she believes himself or herself to be the original inventor or an original joint inventor of a claimed invention in the application and the statement that the application was made or authorized to be made by him or her. See 35 U.S.C 115 and 37 CFR 1.63. An oath must be sworn to by the inventor before a notary public. A declaration may be submitted in lieu of an oath. A declaration does not need to be notarized. Oaths or declarations are required for design, plant, utility, and reissue applications. In addition to the required statements, the oath or declaration must set forth the legal name of the inventor, and, if not provided in an application data sheet, the inventor’s mailing address and residence. In lieu of an oath or declaration, a substitute statement may be signed by the applicant with respect to an inventor who is deceased, legally incapacitated, cannot be found or reached after diligent effort, or has refused to execute the oath or declaration. When filing a continuing application, a copy of the oath or declaration filed in the earlier application may be used provided that it complies with the rules in effect for the continuing application (i.e., the rules that apply to applications filed on or after September 16, 2012).
Forms for declarations are available by calling the USPTO General Information Services at 800-786-9199 or 571-272-1000 or by accessing USPTO website at www.uspto.gov, indexed under the section titled “Forms, Patents.” Most of the forms on the USPTO website are electronically fillable and can be included in the application filed via EFS-Web without having to print the form out in order to scan it for inclusion as a PDF attachment to the application