Tegernese Group Patent Law Harmonization Feedback Submission Request

Request for Approval under the “Generic Clearance for the Collection of Routine Customer Feedback” (OMB Control Number: 0690-0030)

TITLE OF INFORMATION COLLECTION: Tegernsee Patent Law Harmonization Feedback

PURPOSE:

Collect customer information on four issues identified by the Tergernsee Group (composed of Heads of offices from patent offices of the European Patent Office, Denmark, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Japan and the United States) as key to patent law harmonization.

The group has agreed to engage in broad stakeholder consultation and report on the outcome at the next meeting of the Tegernsee Heads in spring 2013. The four issues identified are: grace period, 18-month publication, treatment of conflicting applications and prior user rights.

(See questionnaire for more information).

DESCRIPTION OF RESPONDENTS:

Respondents will be U.S. patent applicants and practitioners who are interested in the Patent Harmonization issues and who volunteer to provide feedback.

TYPE OF COLLECTION: (Check one)

[ ] Customer Comment Card/Complaint Form [x] Customer Satisfaction Survey

[ ] Usability Testing (e.g., Website or Software) [ ] Small Discussion Group

[ ] Focus Group [ ] Other: ______________________

CERTIFICATION:

I certify the following to be true:

1. The collection is voluntary.

2. The collection is low-burden for respondents and low-cost for the Federal Government.

3. The collection is non-controversial and does not raise issues of concern to other federal agencies.

4. The results are not intended to be disseminated to the public.

5. Information gathered will not be used for the purpose of substantially informing influential policy decisions.

6. The collection is targeted to the solicitation of opinions from respondents who have experience with the program or may have experience with the program in the future.

Name:____Soma Saha________________________________________

To assist review, please provide answers to the following question:

Personally Identifiable Information:

Is personally identifiable information (PII) collected? [ ] Yes [x] No

1. If Yes, is the information that will be collected included in records that are subject to the Privacy Act of 1974? [ ] Yes [ ] No

2. If Applicable, has a System or Records Notice been published? [ ] Yes [ ] No

Gifts or Payments:

Is an incentive (e.g., money or reimbursement of expenses, token of appreciation) provided to participants? [ ] Yes [ x ] No

BURDEN HOURS

Category of Respondent	No. of Respondents	Participation Time	Burden Hours
Private Sector	150	15 minutes	38 hours
Totals	150		38 hours

FEDERAL COST: The estimated annual cost to the Federal government is $655.30

If you are conducting a focus group, survey, or plan to employ statistical methods, please provide answers to the following questions:

The selection of your targeted respondents

1. Do you have a customer list or something similar that defines the universe of potential respondents and do you have a sampling plan for selecting from this universe? [ ] Yes [x ] No

If the answer is yes, please provide a description of both below (or attach the sampling plan)? If the answer is no, please provide a description of how you plan to identify your potential group of respondents and how you will select them?

The potential group of respondents will be U.S. patent applicants and practitioners who are interested in the Patent Harmonization issues noted above. There will be no selection of respondents; respondents will be volunteers (self-select). The questionnaire covers four sub-topics of patent harmonization and respondents are not likely to complete the entire survey.  They are likely to answer portions of the various parts or a single part based on the topic most aligned with their experience or interest; therefore the response time estimate represents the estimated time it would take to complete only a portion of the questionnaire.

Administration of the Instrument

1. How will you collect the information? (Check all that apply)

[x] Web-based or other forms of Social Media

[ ] Telephone

[x] In-person

[ ] Mail

[ ] Other, Explain

2. Will interviewers or facilitators be used? [x ] Yes [ ] No

It is expected that the collection activities will run from January through February 2013 in order to obtain results in time to discuss results at the next Tegernsee Group meeting in spring 2013.

There will be an announcement on the uspto.gov website regarding the feedback project, as well as access from there to the on-line collection instrument . There will be a notice placed in the Federal Register announcing the online survey and a roundtable event. The public round table will be held at the USPTO office in Alexandria, at which anyone interested can attend, and will have the option to provide feedback via paper copies of the online instrument.

Please submit all instruments, instructions, correspondences (emails, letters, etc.) to respondents, and scripts as separate documents along with this request document.

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