Request for Comments and Notice of Roundtable Event on the Use of Crowdsourcing and Third-Party Preissuance Submissions To Identify Relevant Prior Art, 15319-15321 [2014-05996]
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Federal Register / Vol. 79, No. 53 / Wednesday, March 19, 2014 / Notices
included in the request for OMB
approval. All comments will become a
matter of public record.
The USPTO is soliciting public
comments to: (a) Evaluate whether the
proposed collection of information is
necessary for the proper performance of
the functions of the agency, including
whether the information will have
practical utility; (b) Evaluate the
accuracy of the agency’s estimate of the
burden of the proposed collection of
information, including the validity of
the methodology and assumptions used;
(c) Enhance the quality, utility, and
clarity of the information to be
collected; and (d) Minimize the burden
of the collection of information on those
who are to respond, including through
the use of appropriate automated,
electronic, mechanical, or other
technological collection techniques or
other forms of information technology,
e.g., permitting electronic submission of
responses.
Dated: March 14, 2014.
Susan K. Fawcett,
Records Officer, USPTO, Office of the Chief
Information Officer.
[FR Doc. 2014–06002 Filed 3–18–14; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3510–16–P
DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
United States Patent and Trademark
Office
[Docket No. PTO–C–2014–0017]
at https://www.uspto.gov/about/nmti/
index.jsp.
The Chief
Financial Officer and Assistant
Secretary of Commerce for
Administration, with the concurrence of
the General Services Administration,
renewed the Charter for the National
Medal of Technology and Innovation
Nomination Evaluation Committee
(NMTI Committee) on February 28,
2014. The NMTI Committee was
established in accordance with the
Federal Advisory Committee Act and
provides advice to the Secretary of
Commerce regarding recommendations
of nominees for the National Medal of
Technology and Innovation (Medal).
The duties of the NMTI Committee are
solely advisory in nature. Nominations
for this Medal are solicited through an
open, competitive, and nationwide call
for nominations, and the NMTI
Committee members are responsible for
reviewing the nominations received.
The NMTI Committee members are
distinguished experts in the private and
public sectors with experience in, or an
understanding of, the promotion of
technology, technological innovation,
and/or the development of technological
manpower. The NMTI Committee
evaluates the nominees and forwards its
recommendations, through the Under
Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual
Property, to the Secretary of Commerce
who, in turn, forwards her
recommendations for the Medal to the
President.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
Dated: March 12, 2014.
Michelle K. Lee,
Deputy Undersecretary of Commerce for
Intellectual Property and Deputy Director of
the United States Patent and Trademark
Office.
National Medal of Technology and
Innovation Nomination Evaluation
Committee Charter Renewal
United States Patent and
Trademark Office, Commerce.
ACTION: Notice.
AGENCY:
[FR Doc. 2014–06015 Filed 3–18–14; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3510–16–P
The Chief Financial Officer
and Assistant Secretary of Commerce for
Administration, with the concurrence of
the General Services Administration,
renewed the Charter for the National
Medal of Technology and Innovation
Nomination Evaluation Committee on
February 28, 2014.
DATES: The Charter for the National
Medal of Technology and Innovation
Nomination Evaluation Committee was
renewed on February 28, 2014.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: John
Palafoutas, Program Manager, National
Medal of Technology and Innovation
Program, United States Patent and
Trademark Office, 600 Dulany Street,
Alexandria, VA 22314; telephone (571)
272–9821 or by electronic mail at nmti@
uspto.gov. Information is also available
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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
United States Patent and Trademark
Office
[Docket No. PTO–P–2014–0013]
Request for Comments and Notice of
Roundtable Event on the Use of
Crowdsourcing and Third-Party
Preissuance Submissions To Identify
Relevant Prior Art
United States Patent and
Trademark Office, Commerce.
ACTION: Notice of public meeting;
request for comments.
AGENCY:
The United States Patent and
Trademark Office (Office) is hosting a
SUMMARY:
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15319
roundtable event to solicit public
opinions regarding the use of
crowdsourcing and third-party
preissuance submissions to identify
relevant prior art and enhance the
quality of examination as well as the
quality of issued patents. Members of
the public are invited to participate. The
roundtable will provide a forum for an
informal discussion of the topics
identified in this notice. Written
comments in response to these topics
also are requested.
Event: The roundtable event will
be held on April 10, 2014, beginning at
12:30 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT),
and ending at 5:00 p.m. EDT.
Registration: Registration to attend the
roundtable in person or via webcast is
required by April 4, 2014. Additionally,
members of the public who wish to
participate in the roundtable as a
speaker must do so by request in writing
no later than March 27, 2014. See the
‘‘Event Registration Information’’
section of this notice for additional
details on how to register.
Comments: Any member of the
public, whether attending the
roundtable or not, may submit written
comments on any of the topics
identified in part III of the
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section,
below, for consideration by the Office.
Written comments must be received on
or before April 25, 2014, to ensure
consideration. Persons submitting
written comments should note that the
Office will not provide a response
because this notice is not a notice of
proposed rulemaking. Written
comments should be sent by electronic
mail addressed to
CrowdsourcingRoundtable2014@
uspto.gov. Comments also may be
submitted by postal mail addressed to:
Mail Stop Comments—Patents,
Commissioner for Patents, P.O. Box
1450, Alexandria, VA 22313–1450,
marked to the attention of Nicole Dretar
Haines. Although comments may be
submitted by postal mail, the Office
prefers to receive comments by
electronic mail.
Comments will be available for public
inspection via the Office’s Internet Web
site at https://www.uspto.gov/patents/
init_events/index.jsp, and at the Office
of the Commissioner for Patents, located
in Madison East, Tenth Floor, 600
Dulany Street, Alexandria, VA 22314,
upon request. Because comments will
be available for public inspection,
information that is not desired to be
made public, such as an address or
phone number, should not be included
in the comments.
DATES:
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Federal Register / Vol. 79, No. 53 / Wednesday, March 19, 2014 / Notices
The roundtable event will
be held at the Office, Madison
Auditorium South, Concourse Level,
Madison Building, 600 Dulany Street,
Alexandria, VA 22314.
Event Registration Information:
Registration is required by April 4,
2014, to attend the roundtable in person
or via Webcast. Additionally, members
of the public who wish to participate in
the roundtable as a speaker must do so
by request in writing no later than
March 27, 2014.
To register or request to present as a
speaker, please send an email message
to CrowdsourcingRoundtable2014@
uspto.gov and provide the following
information: (1) Your name, title, and if
applicable, company or organization,
address, phone number, and email
address; (2) whether you wish to attend
in person or via webcast; and (3) if you
wish to make an oral presentation at the
roundtable, which of the topics
identified in part III of the
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section,
below, will be addressed and the
approximate desired length of your
presentation. Each attendee, even if
from the same organization, must
register separately.
Due to time constraints, the Office
may not be able to accommodate all
persons who wish to make a
presentation. However, the Office will
attempt to accommodate as many
persons who wish to make a
presentation as possible within the time
constraints. After reviewing the list of
speakers and the information regarding
the presentations provided in the
registration, the Office will contact each
speaker prior to the event with the
amount of time available and the
approximate time that the speaker’s
presentation is scheduled to begin. The
amount of time available for each
presentation may be limited to ensure
that all persons selected to speak will
have a meaningful chance to do so.
Speakers who opt to employ slides as
part of their presentation must send
final electronic copies of the slides in
Microsoft PowerPoint to
CrowdsourcingRoundtable2014@
uspto.gov by April 4, 2014, so that the
slides can be displayed at the
roundtable. Additionally, the Office will
provide an opportunity for persons in
the audience not previously selected as
speakers to speak at the roundtable
without a formal presentation.
The Office plans to make the
roundtable event available via webcast.
Webcast information will be available
on the Office’s Internet Web site before
the roundtable event at https://
www.uspto.gov/patents/init_events/
index.jsp.
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ADDRESSES:
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If special accommodations due to a
disability are needed, please inform the
contact person(s) identified below.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:
Requests for additional information
regarding registration and speaker
presentations should be directed to the
attention of Jack Harvey, Director,
Technology Center 2800, by telephone
at 571–272–8004, or by email to
jack.harvey@uspto.gov. Requests for
additional information regarding the
topics for written comments and
discussion at the roundtable event
should be directed to Nicole Dretar
Haines, Senior Legal Advisor, Office of
Patent Legal Administration, by
telephone at 571–272–7717, or by email
to nicole.haines@uspto.gov.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
I. Purpose of Notice: This notice
announces a roundtable event to solicit
public input concerning the topics
identified in part III, below, relating to
the use of crowdsourcing and thirdparty preissuance submissions to
identify relevant prior art and enhance
the quality of examination as well as the
quality of issued patents. Specifically,
the Office is seeking comments on the
potential uses of crowdsourcing during
patent examination, as well as ways for
increasing the quality and volume of
third-party preissuance submissions.
The public is invited to provide
comments on these topics and to
identify future topics for discussion.
II. Background: Over the past year, the
Office has solicited ideas from the
software community through the
Software Partnership to enhance the
quality of software-related patents. In
response, the public has proposed
crowdsourcing as a technique to expand
the prior art available to examiners.
Further, crowdsourcing prior art was
identified as a means to strengthen
patent quality in the executive actions
announced by the White House on
February 20, 2014. While
crowdsourcing was suggested in the
context of the Software Partnership, the
Office is exploring strategies to use
crowdsourcing to obtain relevant prior
art and enhance the quality of
examination across all technology areas.
Information on the Software Partnership
may be found at https://www.uspto.gov/
patents/init_events/software_
partnership.jsp and information on the
White House executive actions is
available at https://www.uspto.gov/
patents/init_events/executive_
actions.jsp.
Crowdsourcing has the potential to
help examiners in certain technology
areas, such as software, where
information that resides within the
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technical community is often not
readily available to examiners. Existing
crowdsourcing Web sites have made use
of third-party preissuance submissions
to submit prior art to examiners. The
preissuance submissions by third
parties provision of the America Invents
Act permits third parties to submit
relevant prior art publications to patent
examiners with a concise description of
relevance. See Changes To Implement
the Preissuance Submissions by Third
Parties Provision of the Leahy-Smith
America Invents Act, 77 FR 42150 (July
17, 2012). The Office is seeking ways to
improve the quality and increase the
volume of third-party submissions, and
utilizing crowdsourcing may be one
promising avenue for achieving these
goals. Aside from increasing the quality
and quantity of third-party submissions,
the Office is exploring other ways that
crowdsourcing may help examiners
identify relevant prior art during
examination and contribute to the
quality of issued patents.
III. Topics for Written Comments and
Discussion at the Roundtable Event: The
Office seeks comments on the following
topics regarding the current third-party
submission process and ways the Office
can use crowdsourcing to improve the
quality of examination:
1. How can the Office leverage the
collective knowledge available via
crowdsourcing to provide an examiner
with relevant prior art?
2. What suggestions do you have for
the Office to encourage more third-party
submissions from the scientific and
technical community via crowdsourcing
activities?
3. Aside from encouraging more thirdparty submissions, what are other ways
the Office can leverage crowdsourcing
to get relevant information from experts
in the scientific and technical
community to the examiner?
4. How can the Office encourage more
third-party participation while ensuring
that no protest or other form of preissuance opposition to the grant of a
patent on an application is initiated
after publication of the application?
5. What, if anything, is preventing you
from submitting prior art as part of a
third-party submission?
6. What other ideas do you have to
ensure examiners have the most
relevant prior art in front of them during
examination?
The Office also seeks comments on
any additional topics, not listed above,
that might serve as a basis for future
discussions regarding the current thirdparty submission process and ways the
Office can use crowdsourcing to
improve the quality of examination.
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Federal Register / Vol. 79, No. 53 / Wednesday, March 19, 2014 / Notices
Dated: March 12, 2014.
Michelle K. Lee,
Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for
Intellectual Property and Deputy Director of
the United States Patent and Trademark
Office.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
[FR Doc. 2014–05996 Filed 3–18–14; 8:45 am]
Background
Trademark Office, 600 Dulany Street,
Alexandria, VA 22314; telephone (571)
272–9821 or by electronic mail to nmti@
uspto.gov.
BILLING CODE 3510–16–P
DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
United States Patent and Trademark
Office
[Docket No. PTO–C–2014–0016]
National Medal of Technology and
Innovation Extension of Deadline for
2014 Nominations
United States Patent and
Trademark Office, Commerce.
ACTION: Notice and extension of
deadline for nominations.
AGENCY:
The Department of Commerce
(United States Patent and Trademark
Office (USPTO)) is in the process of
accepting nominations for the National
Medal of Technology and Innovation
(NMTI). Since establishment by
Congress in the Stevenson-Wydler
Technology Innovation Act of 1980, the
President of the United States has
awarded the annual National Medal of
Technology and Innovation (initially
known as the National Medal of
Technology) to our nation’s leading
innovators. To ensure greater
participation in the nomination process,
the USPTO is extending the deadline for
nominations from April 1, 2014 to June
2, 2014. If you know of a candidate who
has made an outstanding contribution to
the nation’s economic, environmental,
or social well-being through the
promotion of technology, technological
innovation, or the development of
technological manpower, you are
encouraged to submit a nomination.
ADDRESSES: Nominations should be
made by completing the NMTI
nomination form available at https://
www.uspto.gov/about/nmti/index.jsp.
Nomination forms should be submitted
to John Palafoutas, Program Manager,
National Medal of Technology and
Innovation Program, by electronic mail
to NMTI@uspto.gov or by postal mail to:
John Palafoutas, NMTI Program
Manager, United States Patent and
Trademark Office, P.O. Box 1450,
Alexandria, Virginia 22313–1450.
DATES: The deadline for submission of
a nomination is June 2, 2014.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: John
Palafoutas, Program Manager, National
Medal of Technology and Innovation
Program, United States Patent and
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SUMMARY:
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As provided by Congress in the
Stevenson-Wydler Technology
Innovation Act of 1980, the National
Medal of Technology was first awarded
in 1985. On August 9, 2007, the
President signed the America
COMPETES (Creating Opportunities to
Meaningfully Promote Excellence in
Technology, Education, and Science)
Act of 2007. The Act amended Section
16 of the Stevenson-Wydler Technology
Innovation Act of 1980, changing the
name of the Medal to the ‘‘National
Medal of Technology and Innovation.’’
The NMTI is the highest honor awarded
by the President of the United States to
America’s leading innovators in the
field of technology and is given
annually to individuals, teams, or
companies/non-profits who have made
outstanding contributions to the
promotion of technology or
technological innovation, or to the
development of technological
manpower for the improvement of the
economic, environmental, or social
well-being of the United States. The
primary purpose of the NMTI is to
recognize American innovators whose
vision, creativity, and brilliance in
moving ideas to market or in developing
of the nation’s technological manpower
has had a profound and significant
impact on our economy and way of life.
The NMTI highlights the national
importance of fostering technological
innovation based upon solid science,
resulting in commercially successful
products and services. In order to
ensure greater participation in the
nomination process, the USPTO is
extending the deadline for submitting a
nomination from April 1, 2014 to June
2, 2014.
Eligibility and Nomination Criteria
Nomination Guidelines containing
information on eligibility and
nomination criteria are available at
https://www.uspto.gov/about/nmti/
guidelines.jsp.
Date: March 12, 2014.
Michelle K. Lee,
Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for
Intellectual Property and Deputy Director of
the United States Patent and Trademark
Office.
[FR Doc. 2014–06008 Filed 3–18–14; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3510–16–P
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15321
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
Office of the Secretary
Threat Reduction Advisory Committee;
Notice of Federal Advisory Committee
Meeting
Office of the Under Secretary of
Defense (Acquisition, Technology and
Logistics), Department of Defense.
ACTION: Federal Advisory Committee
meeting notice.
AGENCY:
The Department of Defense is
publishing this notice to announce the
following Federal advisory committee
meeting of the Threat Reduction
Advisory Committee (TRAC). This
meeting will be closed to the public.
DATES: Wednesday, April 2, 2014, from
8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. and Thursday,
April 3, 2014, from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30
p.m.
SUMMARY:
The Pentagon Conference
Center, Arlington, Virginia on April 2
and CENTRA Technology Inc., Ballston,
Virginia on April 3.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Mr.
William Hostyn, DoD, Defense Threat
Reduction Agency/J2/5/8R–AC, 8725
John J. Kingman Road, MS 6201, Fort
Belvoir, VA 22060–6201. Email:
william.hostyn@dtra.mil. Phone: (703)
767–4453. Fax: (703) 767–4206.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Due to
difficulties finalizing the meeting
agenda for the scheduled meeting of
April 2–3, 2014, of the Threat Reduction
Advisory Committee the requirements
of 41 CFR § 102–3.150(a) were not met.
Accordingly, the Advisory Committee
Management Officer for the Department
of Defense, pursuant to 41 CFR § 102–
3.150(b), waives the 15-calendar day
notification requirement.
Purpose of Meeting: This meeting is
being held under the provisions of the
Federal Advisory Committee Act of
1972 (FACA) (5 U.S.C., Appendix, as
amended), the Government in the
Sunshine Act of 1976 (5 U.S.C. 552b, as
amended), and 41 CFR 102–3.150. The
Committee will obtain, review and
evaluate classified information related
to the Committee’s mission to advise on
technology security, Combating
Weapons of Mass Destruction (C–
WMD), counter terrorism and counter
proliferation.
Agenda: On Wednesday, April 2, the
TRAC will hold a joint session with the
Department of State’s International
Security Advisory Board (ISAB) during
which time the two committees will
share information about their efforts in
areas of shared responsibility. Acting
Deputy Secretary of Defense Christine
ADDRESSES:
E:\FR\FM\19MRN1.SGM
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]]>Agencies
[Federal Register Volume 79, Number 53 (Wednesday, March 19, 2014)]
[Notices]
[Pages 15319-15321]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2014-05996]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
United States Patent and Trademark Office
[Docket No. PTO-P-2014-0013]
Request for Comments and Notice of Roundtable Event on the Use of
Crowdsourcing and Third-Party Preissuance Submissions To Identify
Relevant Prior Art
AGENCY: United States Patent and Trademark Office, Commerce.
ACTION: Notice of public meeting; request for comments.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
SUMMARY: The United States Patent and Trademark Office (Office) is
hosting a roundtable event to solicit public opinions regarding the use
of crowdsourcing and third-party preissuance submissions to identify
relevant prior art and enhance the quality of examination as well as
the quality of issued patents. Members of the public are invited to
participate. The roundtable will provide a forum for an informal
discussion of the topics identified in this notice. Written comments in
response to these topics also are requested.
DATES: Event: The roundtable event will be held on April 10, 2014,
beginning at 12:30 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT), and ending at 5:00
p.m. EDT.
Registration: Registration to attend the roundtable in person or
via webcast is required by April 4, 2014. Additionally, members of the
public who wish to participate in the roundtable as a speaker must do
so by request in writing no later than March 27, 2014. See the ``Event
Registration Information'' section of this notice for additional
details on how to register.
Comments: Any member of the public, whether attending the
roundtable or not, may submit written comments on any of the topics
identified in part III of the Supplementary Information section, below,
for consideration by the Office. Written comments must be received on
or before April 25, 2014, to ensure consideration. Persons submitting
written comments should note that the Office will not provide a
response because this notice is not a notice of proposed rulemaking.
Written comments should be sent by electronic mail addressed to
CrowdsourcingRoundtable2014@uspto.gov. Comments also may be submitted
by postal mail addressed to: Mail Stop Comments--Patents, Commissioner
for Patents, P.O. Box 1450, Alexandria, VA 22313-1450, marked to the
attention of Nicole Dretar Haines. Although comments may be submitted
by postal mail, the Office prefers to receive comments by electronic
mail.
Comments will be available for public inspection via the Office's
Internet Web site at https://www.uspto.gov/patents/init_events/index.jsp, and at the Office of the Commissioner for Patents, located
in Madison East, Tenth Floor, 600 Dulany Street, Alexandria, VA 22314,
upon request. Because comments will be available for public inspection,
information that is not desired to be made public, such as an address
or phone number, should not be included in the comments.
[[Page 15320]]
ADDRESSES: The roundtable event will be held at the Office, Madison
Auditorium South, Concourse Level, Madison Building, 600 Dulany Street,
Alexandria, VA 22314.
Event Registration Information: Registration is required by April
4, 2014, to attend the roundtable in person or via Webcast.
Additionally, members of the public who wish to participate in the
roundtable as a speaker must do so by request in writing no later than
March 27, 2014.
To register or request to present as a speaker, please send an
email message to CrowdsourcingRoundtable2014@uspto.gov and provide the
following information: (1) Your name, title, and if applicable, company
or organization, address, phone number, and email address; (2) whether
you wish to attend in person or via webcast; and (3) if you wish to
make an oral presentation at the roundtable, which of the topics
identified in part III of the SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section, below,
will be addressed and the approximate desired length of your
presentation. Each attendee, even if from the same organization, must
register separately.
Due to time constraints, the Office may not be able to accommodate
all persons who wish to make a presentation. However, the Office will
attempt to accommodate as many persons who wish to make a presentation
as possible within the time constraints. After reviewing the list of
speakers and the information regarding the presentations provided in
the registration, the Office will contact each speaker prior to the
event with the amount of time available and the approximate time that
the speaker's presentation is scheduled to begin. The amount of time
available for each presentation may be limited to ensure that all
persons selected to speak will have a meaningful chance to do so.
Speakers who opt to employ slides as part of their presentation must
send final electronic copies of the slides in Microsoft PowerPoint to
CrowdsourcingRoundtable2014@uspto.gov by April 4, 2014, so that the
slides can be displayed at the roundtable. Additionally, the Office
will provide an opportunity for persons in the audience not previously
selected as speakers to speak at the roundtable without a formal
presentation.
The Office plans to make the roundtable event available via
webcast. Webcast information will be available on the Office's Internet
Web site before the roundtable event at https://www.uspto.gov/patents/init_events/index.jsp.
If special accommodations due to a disability are needed, please
inform the contact person(s) identified below.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Requests for additional information
regarding registration and speaker presentations should be directed to
the attention of Jack Harvey, Director, Technology Center 2800, by
telephone at 571-272-8004, or by email to jack.harvey@uspto.gov.
Requests for additional information regarding the topics for written
comments and discussion at the roundtable event should be directed to
Nicole Dretar Haines, Senior Legal Advisor, Office of Patent Legal
Administration, by telephone at 571-272-7717, or by email to
nicole.haines@uspto.gov.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
I. Purpose of Notice: This notice announces a roundtable event to
solicit public input concerning the topics identified in part III,
below, relating to the use of crowdsourcing and third-party preissuance
submissions to identify relevant prior art and enhance the quality of
examination as well as the quality of issued patents. Specifically, the
Office is seeking comments on the potential uses of crowdsourcing
during patent examination, as well as ways for increasing the quality
and volume of third-party preissuance submissions. The public is
invited to provide comments on these topics and to identify future
topics for discussion.
II. Background: Over the past year, the Office has solicited ideas
from the software community through the Software Partnership to enhance
the quality of software-related patents. In response, the public has
proposed crowdsourcing as a technique to expand the prior art available
to examiners. Further, crowdsourcing prior art was identified as a
means to strengthen patent quality in the executive actions announced
by the White House on February 20, 2014. While crowdsourcing was
suggested in the context of the Software Partnership, the Office is
exploring strategies to use crowdsourcing to obtain relevant prior art
and enhance the quality of examination across all technology areas.
Information on the Software Partnership may be found at https://www.uspto.gov/patents/init_events/software_partnership.jsp and
information on the White House executive actions is available at https://www.uspto.gov/patents/init_events/executive_actions.jsp.
Crowdsourcing has the potential to help examiners in certain
technology areas, such as software, where information that resides
within the technical community is often not readily available to
examiners. Existing crowdsourcing Web sites have made use of third-
party preissuance submissions to submit prior art to examiners. The
preissuance submissions by third parties provision of the America
Invents Act permits third parties to submit relevant prior art
publications to patent examiners with a concise description of
relevance. See Changes To Implement the Preissuance Submissions by
Third Parties Provision of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act, 77 FR
42150 (July 17, 2012). The Office is seeking ways to improve the
quality and increase the volume of third-party submissions, and
utilizing crowdsourcing may be one promising avenue for achieving these
goals. Aside from increasing the quality and quantity of third-party
submissions, the Office is exploring other ways that crowdsourcing may
help examiners identify relevant prior art during examination and
contribute to the quality of issued patents.
III. Topics for Written Comments and Discussion at the Roundtable
Event: The Office seeks comments on the following topics regarding the
current third-party submission process and ways the Office can use
crowdsourcing to improve the quality of examination:
1. How can the Office leverage the collective knowledge available
via crowdsourcing to provide an examiner with relevant prior art?
2. What suggestions do you have for the Office to encourage more
third-party submissions from the scientific and technical community via
crowdsourcing activities?
3. Aside from encouraging more third-party submissions, what are
other ways the Office can leverage crowdsourcing to get relevant
information from experts in the scientific and technical community to
the examiner?
4. How can the Office encourage more third-party participation
while ensuring that no protest or other form of pre-issuance opposition
to the grant of a patent on an application is initiated after
publication of the application?
5. What, if anything, is preventing you from submitting prior art
as part of a third-party submission?
6. What other ideas do you have to ensure examiners have the most
relevant prior art in front of them during examination?
The Office also seeks comments on any additional topics, not listed
above, that might serve as a basis for future discussions regarding the
current third-party submission process and ways the Office can use
crowdsourcing to improve the quality of examination.
[[Page 15321]]
Dated: March 12, 2014.
Michelle K. Lee,
Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Deputy
Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
[FR Doc. 2014-05996 Filed 3-18-14; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3510-16-P
