August 17, 2010 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is streamlining the procedure for the review of appeal briefs filed in inter partes reexamination proceeding appeals to increase the efficiency of the appellate process and to reduce the pendency of appeals. The Chief Judge of the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences (BPAI) or his designee (collectively, ``Chief Judge''), will have the sole responsibility for determining whether appeal briefs filed in inter partes reexamination proceedings (i.e., appellant's briefs, respondent's briefs, and rebuttal briefs) comply with the applicable regulations, and will complete the determination before the appeal brief is forwarded to the examiner for consideration. The examiner will no longer review appeal briefs for compliance with the applicable regulations. The USPTO expects to achieve a reduction in inter partes reexamination proceeding appeal pendency as measured from the filing of a notice of appeal to the BPAI's docketing of the appeal by eliminating duplicate reviews by the examiner and the BPAI. The USPTO expects further reduction in pendency because the streamlined procedure will increase consistency in the determination, and thereby reduce the number of notices of noncompliant appeal briefs and non- substantive returns from the BPAI that require parties to file corrected appeal briefs in inter partes reexamination proceeding appeals.

NMFS is extending the emergency action, implemented on February 18, 2010, to exempt individual fishing quota (IFQ) and individual processing quota (IPQ) issued for the Western Aleutian Islands golden king crab fishery from the West regional designation. Under the Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands Crab Rationalization Program, Federal regulations require that golden king crab harvested with IFQ with a West regional designation be delivered to a processor with West designated IPQ in the West region of the Aleutian Islands. An emergency exists because, due to a recent unforeseen event, no crab processing facility is open in the West region. This emergency rule extension is necessary to ensure that the exemption remains in effect to prevent disruption to the Aleutian Islands golden king crab fishery by allowing fishermen to deliver crab harvested with West designated IFQ to processors outside the West region and allow processors with West designated IPQ to process that crab outside the West region for the 2010/2011 fishing season. This action is intended to promote the goals and objectives of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, the Fishery Management Plan for Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands King and Tanner Crabs, and other applicable law.

Notice is hereby given that the University of Florida, Aquatic Animal Program, College of Veterinary Medicine, Gainesville, FL 32610 (Ruth Francis-Floyd, Responsible Party) has been issued a permit to receive, import and export marine mammal parts under NMFS jurisdiction for scientific research.

Notice is hereby given that the Department of State has forwarded the attached Notifications of Proposed Export Licenses to the Congress on the dates indicated on the attachments pursuant to sections 36(c) and 36(d) and in compliance with section 36(f) of the Arms Export Control Act (22 U.S.C. 2776).

As part of its continuing effort to reduce paperwork and respondent burden, CBP invites the general public and other Federal agencies to comment on an information collection requirement concerning the: Importation Bond Structure. This request for comment is being made pursuant to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (Pub. L. 104-13; 44 U.S.C. 3505(c)(2)).

NIST announces that the Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) Advisory Board, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) will hold an open meeting on Monday, September 13, 2010 from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

The Advisory Committee on Earthquake Hazards Reduction (ACEHR or Committee), will meet Tuesday, November 9, 2010 from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Wednesday, November 10, 2010, from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. The primary purpose of this meeting is to receive information on NEHRP earthquake related activities and to gather information for the 2011 Annual Report of the Effectiveness of the NEHRP Advisory Committee on Earthquake Hazard Reduction. The agenda may change to accommodate Committee business. The final agenda will be posted on the NEHRP Web site at https://nehrp.gov/.

EPA is announcing that ERG, an EPA contractor for external scientific peer review, will convene an independent panel of experts and organize and conduct an external peer review workshop to review the draft human health assessment titled, ``Toxicological Review of Dichloromethane: In Support of Summary Information on the Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS)'' (EPA/635/R-10/003A). The draft assessment was prepared by the National Center for Environmental Assessment (NCEA) within the EPA Office of Research and Development.

We, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service), announce the availability of the final comprehensive conservation plan (CCP) and finding of no significant impact (FONSI) for the environmental assessment (EA) for John Hay National Wildlife Refuge (NWR). In this final CCP, we describe how we will manage this refuge for the next 15 years.

In accordance with the Federal Land Policy and Management Act and the Federal Advisory Committee Act of 1972, the U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Central California Resource Advisory Council (RAC) will meet as indicated below.

The Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) is announcing that the Advisory Board for Exceptional Children (Advisory Board) will hold its next meeting in Washington, DC. The purpose of the meeting is to meet the mandates of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 2004 (IDEA) for Indian children with disabilities.

Pursuant to section 102(2)(C) of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) of 1969, as amended, the Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) is notifying the public that it has prepared a FEIS on the proposed Minidoka Dam Spillway Replacement. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Department of Interior) and Rural Development (Department of Agriculture) are cooperating agencies under NEPA. Alternatives considered in the FEIS are the No Action, as required under NEPA; total replacement of the spillway and headgate structures; and replacement of just the spillway. Total replacement of the spillway and headgate structures is the preferred alternative. Proposed changes in operations following construction are also evaluated, as is designation of special use areas. Reclamation published a Draft EIS in the Federal Register on December 11, 2009 (74 FR 65783) with a public comment period ending on February 5, 2010. The Final EIS includes written responses to all public comments on the Draft EIS. Revisions were made in the FEIS to incorporate responses to comments. In response to comments an adaptive management approach, which includes monitoring of effects resulting from changes in operations, has been added and proposed changes to operations will be made over a 4-year period. These revisions do not significantly change the analysis or results presented in the Draft EIS. However, if monitoring under the adaptive management approach shows different impacts than are documented in this FEIS, and changes to proposed operations (as discussed in this FEIS) are made as a result of monitoring, additional NEPA compliance will be conducted to document those changes and/or impacts.

The Civilian Agency Acquisition Council and the Defense Acquisition Regulations Council (Councils) are proposing to amend the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) to standardize use of Unique Procurement Instrument Identifiers (PIID) throughout the Government. This case defines the requirement for agency unique procurement instrument identifiers and extends the requirement for using PIIDs to all solicitations, contracts, and related procurement instruments across the Federal Government.

The inventions listed below are owned by an agency of the U.S. Government and are available for licensing in the U.S. in accordance with 35 U.S.C. 207 to achieve expeditious commercialization of results of federally-funded research and development. Foreign patent applications are filed on selected inventions to extend market coverage for companies and may also be available for licensing.

The Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank), as a part of its continuing effort to reduce paperwork and respondent burden, invites the general public and other Federal Agencies to comment on the proposed information collection, as required by the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995.