Department of Commerce December 15, 2021 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The Northeast Fisheries Science Center has requested a change to a previously issued exempted fishing permit which would result in new regulatory exemptions for participating vessels. The Assistant Regional Administrator for Sustainable Fisheries, Greater Atlantic Region, NMFS, has determined that this request is outside the scope of the initially approved exempted fishing permit. As a result, regulations under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act require publication of this notification to provide interested parties the opportunity to comment on the proposed changes to the exempted fishing permit previously issued to the Northeast Fisheries Science Center.

NMFS announces that the Hawaii Longline Association (HLA) has applied for an experimental fishing permit (EFP) to test tori lines (bird scaring devices) in the Hawaii shallow-set longline fishery for swordfish. The intent of the EFP is to test new ways to discourage seabird interactions that also increase operational flexibility.

The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) is proposing to issue a permit to authorize the incidental, but not intentional, take of specific Endangered Species Act (ESA)-listed marine mammal species or stocks under the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), in the Alaska (AK) Bering Sea, Aleutian Islands (BSAI) Pacific cod pot fishery.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Information Technology Laboratory (ITL) invites interested U.S. companies to submit letters of interest in collaborating with NIST/ITL on an ongoing basis in the National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) through partnerships called ``National Cybersecurity Excellence Partnerships'' (NCEPs). NIST previously published a notice for this partnership on October 19, 2012. This notice repeats the same information contained in the previous notice but contains updated contact and mailing information.

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)'s Advisory Committee on Earthquake Hazards Reduction (ACEHR or Committee) will hold a virtual meeting via web conference on Wednesday, March 2, 2022, from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. Eastern Time and Thursday, March 3, 2022, from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. Eastern Time. The primary purpose of this meeting is for the Committee to review the activities of the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (NEHRP) and receive responses to the Committee's 2021 biennial report on the effectiveness of NEHRP. The agenda may change to accommodate Committee business. The final agenda and any meeting materials will be posted on the NEHRP website at https://nehrp.gov/.

NMFS is prohibiting directed fishing for Pacific ocean perch in the Eastern Aleutian district (EAI) of the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands management area (BSAI) by vessels participating in the BSAI trawl limited access sector fishery. This action is necessary to prevent exceeding the 2021 total allowable catch (TAC) of Pacific ocean perch in the EAI allocated to vessels participating in the BSAI trawl limited access sector fishery.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is proposing to implement electronic patent issuance. Under the proposed change, the USPTO would issue patents electronically through its patent document viewing systems (i.e., Patent Center and Patent Application Image Retrieval (PAIR)). Patents would no longer be issued on paper, and as a result, they would no longer be mailed to the correspondence address of record as part of the patent issuance process. The elimination of these steps would allow issued patents to be available weeks sooner in electronic form, and the patentee would be able to view and print the complete issued patent via the USPTO's patent document viewing systems immediately upon issue. Patentees would continue to have the option of ordering an unlimited number of paper presentation copies and certified copies of patents.