Under 35 U.S.C. 2 and 37 CFR
1.31-1.36, this information collection is used by the public to
grant or revoke power of attorney in a patent application, to
withdraw as attorney or agent of record, to authorize a
practitioner to act in a representative capacity, to change the
correspondence address for one or more applications or patents, to
request a Customer Number, to designate or change the
correspondence address or list of practitioners associated with a
Customer Number, and to associate a patent application with a
Customer Number. The USPTOs Customer Number practice permits
authorized individuals to change the correspondence address or
representatives of record for a number of applications or patents
with one change request instead of filing separate requests for
each application or patent. The USPTO uses the information in this
collection to determine who is authorized to take action in an
application or patent on behalf of the applicant or assignee and
where to send correspondence regarding an application or patent.
The USPTO is revising two of the forms in this collection related
to customer numbers, the Request for Customer Number Data Change
(PTO/SB/124) and the Request for Customer Number (PTO/SB/125). In
order to take full advantage of the online patent application
systems offered by the USPTO, users must obtain a public key
infrastructure (PKI) certificate and then associate the PKI
certificate with a USPTO customer number. The USPTO is streamlining
the procedure for associating a PKI certificate with a customer
number. Typically, practitioners or pro se inventors would submit a
Certificate Action Form (PTO-2042), which is approved under OMB
Control Number 0651-0045, to the USPTO in order to associate their
PKI certificates with a customer number. Under the revised
procedure, practitioners or inventors listed on the Request for
Customer Number forms would automatically have their existing PKI
certificates associated with the indicated customer number (or
deleted from the customer number, in the case of deleted
practitioners) without having to submit a separate Certificate
Action Form. The proposed revisions to Forms PTO/SB/125 and
PTO/SB/125 will not result in a substantive change in the burden
for this collection. The proposed revisions clarify the new
procedure for users of the forms and do not change the information
being collected.
The United States Patent and
Trademark Office (USPTO) is submitting this change worksheet to add
five offshoot forms. The proposed new forms are closely derived
from forms already approved in this collection and are intended to
assist the public in filing power of attorney (PTO/SB81) and change
of correspondence requests (SB/123) in specific circumstances. The
proposed addition of these forms will not result in a substantive
change in the burden for this collection. The addition of the
proposed new forms will not impact the total number of responses or
annual cost burden expected for this collection, but there is a
showing of an increase of 2 burden hours as a program change due to
mathematical rounding up of the numbers, which is a result of
creating separate line items within the ROCIS system to accommodate
the itemization of the off shoot forms.
$615,507
No
No
No
Uncollected
No
Uncollected
Raul Tamayo 5712727728
Raul.Tamayo@uspto.gov
No
On behalf of this Federal agency, I certify that
the collection of information encompassed by this request complies
with 5 CFR 1320.9 and the related provisions of 5 CFR
1320.8(b)(3).
The following is a summary of the topics, regarding
the proposed collection of information, that the certification
covers:
(i) Why the information is being collected;
(ii) Use of information;
(iii) Burden estimate;
(iv) Nature of response (voluntary, required for a
benefit, or mandatory);
(v) Nature and extent of confidentiality; and
(vi) Need to display currently valid OMB control
number;
If you are unable to certify compliance with any of
these provisions, identify the item by leaving the box unchecked
and explain the reason in the Supporting Statement.