Office of Public Records
Public User’s Meeting
October 20, 2004
2:00 p.m.

The Public User’s Meeting was held at 2:00pm in the 7th floor conference room, Crystal Gateway 4, 200 12th St., South, Suite 700, Arlington, VA. Ted Parr, OPR Director, chaired the meeting. There were approximately 20 members of the public in attendance and 9 USPTO staff.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

o Next Public User’s meeting location undecided
o Customer services boxes in retained in South Tower
o Crystal Plaza Arcade boxes moving to Carlyle

STATUS OF OPR MOVE

Ted Parr announced that OPR’s move will take place in January 2005 towards the end of the month. OPR will occupy space on the 2nd, 9th and 10th floors in the South Tower building.

PSF ISSUES

Julie Fraser, new IT troubleshooter for the PSF informed the users of some new procedures for reporting system problems/difficulties. She encouraged the users to e-mail questions, suggestions and other issues to the new PSF e-mail address, psf@uspto.gov. The user feedback will be posted on the PSF web site and also paper copies will be available at the information desk along with updates and progress reports.

Customer query – Will there be an auto-response to e-mails? No. They will assign a tracking number and respond via the tracking number.

This will be starting next week. Julie also said that customer may e-mail her directly with responses concerning the new report.

STATUS OF PUBLIC SEARCH FACILITY MOVE

The PSF move took place in September. Terry Howard stressed that while the move itself went well, they are still in a transitional phase. They are still working out some of the problems in the new space as far as system setup/function and helping the users become acclimated with the new procedures and location.

Customer Questions:

What can be done about the locked restroom doors? That is an issue that must be handled by Security.

The sensors on the sinks in the Men’s room are difficult to operate. Can they be adjusted someway to operate easier? LCOR will have to be notified to see what can be done about that.

Also, will there be exhaust fans installed in the restrooms? Again, LCOR will have to be notified.

Customers were interested to know why all the color printers were moved to the new facility. Question: Will a color printer/copier be installed at South Tower along with regular black and white printer/copier? Kay Melvin and Terry will look into having a color printer/copier put in.

The users brought up the maintenance and monitoring of equipment use at PSF, especially the printers and copiers. There were instances where machines ran out of toner, paper, etc. Customers also requested that someone is around to assist users not familiar with searching procedures and how to use the equipment. Re-assess the amount of coverage in PSF to help users who are not knowledgeable in the use of equipment and materials.

Customer suggestion: Have the ability to place orders at Carlyle instead of going to South Tower, back to Carlyle then back to South Tower to pick it up.

IT ISSUES

The users have been experiencing problems with TICRS. They are receiving error messages – runtime errors - and getting kicked out of the system. Terry Howard said she would have someone look into it. Customers report not receiving the proper assistance even when the errors are reported to the PSF staff. Even after reporting errors to the online desk nothing is happening to take care of the problem. Staff will have to ask more in depth questions as to type of error, when it occurred, station id, etc., then write up the error message received and report to help desk and supervisor.

PSF HOLIDAY HOURS

Users are requesting better holiday hours. PSF managers have suggested shorter hours after Thanksgiving, between Christmas and New Years.

Many users expressed concern over shorter hours because of the rise in customer requests/orders between Thanksgiving and the end of the year. Since workloads increase around the holidays can the PSF keep at least a skeleton staff in place during these times? A suggestion was made to use retired SPEs in the PSF when regular employees are out on leave around the holidays. Users also requested advance knowledge of time changes in the PSF prior to implementation.

QUESTIONS

What is the recourse for office actions missing on TICRS?

The meeting was adjourned at 3:15pm.

KEY: =online business system =fees =forms=help =laws/regulations =definition (glossary)

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