Department of Commerce June 27, 2014 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (AIA) provided for new administrative trial proceedings before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (Board). The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issued a number of final rules and a trial practice guide in August and September of 2012 to implement the new administrative trial provisions of the AIA. The USPTO now is seeking public comment on all aspects of the new administrative trial proceedings, including the administrative trial proceeding rules and trial practice guide.

NMFS is changing the accounting system and accountability measures implemented last year for fishing year 2012 Northeast multispecies fishery sector annual catch entitlement carryover used during fishing year 2013. This change implements a stock level pound- for-pound payback accountability measure if a sector uses its 2012 carryover and both the sector sub-annual catch limit and the overall annual catch limit are exceeded. This rule is necessary to comply with an April 4, 2014, ruling by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia that invalidated and vacated the fishing year 2013 carryover measures.

In accordance with the Privacy Act of 1974, as amended, 5 U.S.C. 552a(e)(4) and (11), the Department of Commerce proposes to amend the system of records entitled ``COMMERCE/DEPT-1, Attendance, Leave, and Payroll Records of Employees and Certain Other Persons,'' to include data fields collected by the Defense Manpower Data Center and previously omitted in this System of Records Notice; to include a new routine use, for the issuance of Common Access Cards (CAC) identification cards to eligible National Oceanic and Atmospheric (NOAA) Commissioned Corps, NOAA civilian employees and NOAA contractors, to support compliance with HSPD-12, PIV-II requirements under Federal Information Processing Standard 201 (FIPS 201); to update notification procedures; and other administrative updates. We invite public comment on the amended system announced in this publication.

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) will convene a meeting of a privacy multistakeholder process concerning the commercial use of facial recognition technology on July 24, 2014.

The Pacific Fishery Management Council's (Pacific Council) ad hoc Lower Columbia River Natural Coho Workgroup (LRC Workgroup) will hold a public work session in Portland, OR. The meeting is open to the public, but is not intended as a public hearing. Public comments will be taken at the discretion of the LRC Workgroup chair as time allows.

NMFS issues this final rule to amend the regulations implementing the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Plan (Plan). This rule revises the management measures for reducing the incidental mortality and serious injury to the North Atlantic right whale (Eubalaena glacialis), humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae), and fin whale (Balaenoptera physalus) in commercial trap/pot and gillnet fisheries to further the goals of the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) and the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The measures identified in the Plan are also intended to benefit minke whales (Balaenoptera acutorostrata), which are not classified as strategic stocks under the MMPA, but are known to be taken incidentally in commercial fisheries.