Minutes of March 17, 2004
Office of Public Records (OPR) Public Users Meeting

John Hassett addressed the File Information Unit (FIU) copying facilities move and security issues.

The FIU will be relocating from its present location in the Crystal Plaza buildings to the South Tower building. The move must be completed no later than Sept. 30, 2004. Actual moving date is tentatively between July/August. Mr. Hassett also explained that guards are stationed in all buildings at Carlyle and that employee/contractor access is attained by the use of electronic badges/keys. Public users will be considered visitors to the new buildings. Carlyle badges will be issued to public users who will pass through metal detectors and x-ray machines. Customers may be issued more that one type of security badge—one for access to the buildings in Alexandria, one for using the File Tracking System in the FIU and one for access to online search systems in the Public Search Facilities. Shuttle service will travel between CPK2, CP2, and Carlyle. After the FIU moves to South Tower the shuttle will also stop there.

Martha Sneed addressed the move of the Search Facilities to Carlyle.

Patent classified paper, utility and design patents are being removed, per the notice published last week. The first removal effort started last week in the Trademark Search Library. A notice will be posted when we begin to remove paper in the Patent Search Room. The patent and trademark search rooms will be consolidated in the Madison building east, on the first two floors, by mid September (target), the exact date to be determined. Additional terminals will be added in the new location, for a total of 300. During the move the search facilities will be unavailable for no more than one workweek, possibly less. Customers expressed concern about any closing for the move.

In response to a question about the ultimate location of a specific collection, Ms. Sneed responded that the easiest way to think of it is that everything is getting moved except classified trademark registrations and patents that are being removed.

Question: Will the cashier window be relocated to Carlyle as well?
Answer: Yes. However the cashier window is for the search facilities.

Customers expressed concerned about the cashier window for the FIU and Trademark paper and about the amount of time they feel they will need to spend traveling back and forth between South Tower and Carlyle to use the FIU, make copies and perform searches. Many wondered why the FIU cannot also be located in the same area as the search rooms.

Question: Will assignment searches be able to be done at Carlyle?
Answer: Yes.

Question: How large is the new search facility, square footage?
Answer: Mike Bevenour answered that workstations are 60x60, in approximately 55,000 square feet of space.

Question: Why does the Public Search Facility need 300 terminals and that much space? Why can’t some of that space be used to house the FIU?
Answer: Mr. Bevenour explained that the facility has been designed based on many factors, including expected demand, up-to-date building codes, and many competing interests for the space.

In response to questions about the physical split of the search room from FIU Mr. Hassett stated that the FIU and paper may relocate eventually, however for the interim South Tower will be its location. When asked how long the interim might be Mr. Bevenour stated that the lease is up in 2007.

Comment: Customers are concerned about the hours of operation and expressed a need that the search facilities be open concurrently.

Several customers expressed the view that no one surveyed them about the move and what concerns they would have about how it affected their work. Others voiced the opinion that PTO did not consider their needs important, especially as it relates to their ability to perform searches efficiently and in a timely manner.

Question: Where will Trademark files be copied?
Answer: Trademarks has planned for copy machines to be available at the Trademark Assistance Center.

Question: Will the REPS system move?
Answer: Yes.

Question: Will Internet access or wireless Internet access be available in the new location? A customer suggested that wireless Internet access could be provided through a private provider.
Answer: Wireless access was considered by PTO but was deemed not possible at this time.

Comment: Several customers expressed interest in having one or two EAST or WEST terminals available adjacent with the FIU.

Ted Parr addressed OPR issues.

Mr. Parr noted that OEMS was shut down over a weekend earlier this month for system upgrades in preparation for USPTO migration to Windows XP. He noted that the XP migration is not expected to have any production or customer impacts. There were no questions or comments on this topic.

File wrapper orders for paper file wrapper copies are still experiencing a backlog although gains have been made over the last month. File Wrapper order processing time is over 50 days but is expected to drop off as more IFW orders, which are filled much faster, are received. IFW File Wrapper orders now account for two thirds of OPR’s File Wrapper orders.

Several customers expressed concern about the sequence of documents on the IFW CD-ROMs. They indicated that pages were not in numerical order. Marilyn Ricks-Beach explained that the CDs are burned according to how the documents are stored in the database, which is a function of the order the pages were scanned. A customer indicated that this is an OIPE issue. Ms. Ricks-Beach asked for specific examples to be sent to OPR and Mr. Parr said he would bring up the issue with the appropriate organization. Several customers asked if we could leave the CDs “open” so they could rearrange the pages themselves. Response was “no”, the CDs must be closed to prevent modification.

Question: If a user has a power-to-inspect why do they not have terminals to look at IFWs—why must they order from OPR?
Answer: Direct customer access to IFW data is already available to applicants via Private PAIR and customers are urged to take advantage of it.

Mr. Parr briefly explained the plans for public IFW access to published application content coming in late Summer or Fall, noting that public access will be available over the Internet and that current plans are that the access will be free of charge. A few customers expressed concern about that, noting that it will cut into their businesses.

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

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