Trilateral Conference : Patent Office Operations in the Electronic Age
Electronic Records Consortium (ERC) and the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) : Electronic Records Management - Technical and Legal Issues
Included herein are hypertext links to the available papers and handouts presented at the ERM Symposia. PTO invites the public to participate in a further dialog on the direction the PTO should take in exploring next steps necessary to resolve the problems of establishing as legal record a patent application filed and processed in electronic form that will withstand attacks on admissibility and reliability in administrative hearings and in later patent litigation.
PTO has discovered through its interagency contacts that there exists a great repository of information relating to the security, transmission and storage of electronic records in Industry, Standards Bodies and Federal Agencies that can greatly assist the PTO in its effort to comply with the National Performance Reviews directive regarding government agencies roles in the Global Information Infrastructure.
PTO would like to take advantage of this repository of knowledge through collaborative agreements to make PTO's implementation work better and cost less. Due to the international nature of patent practice, the PTO is especially interested in comments from organizations and individuals involved in international Electronic Commerce initiatives who are developing standards or identifying issues that need to be resolved in the International transmission and storage of electronic information.
In a global sense, PTO is looking for ideas and suggestions as to what our next steps in developing a comprehensive coherent plan of action should be to effectively explore the legal obstacles to moving the patent process from a paper based to an electronic based system.
The PTO is developing a plan of action for dealing with the ERM issues in the areas of :
electronic filing and processing of applications in electronic form in the PAM project
exchange of priority documents in electronic form
dissemination of patent information in electronic form
Internet related issues, especially the problems associated with the use of electronically created and maintained materials found exclusively on the Internet as prior art
PTO would appreciate your input on these issues, including pointers to resources of information relevant to the topics. Comment form.
In particular PTO would appreciate comments relating to:
1. Opportunities and Topics for follow-on technical and legal discussions.
For example, many Federal Agencies are moving to electronic filing and processing of applications. The National Science Foundation is moving as part of its Reengineering effort to make grant applications and their administration wholly electronic. The NCBI and Genome Projects have moved to processing sequence submission information in electronic form. The IRS is moving their forms and tax payments into electronic form. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is exploring moving its rule making process into an interactive medium. Other agencies may be undertaking similar projects. Perhaps, collaboration on an interagency basis to define standards and resolve legal issues may be warranted.
Comment form
2. Further contact with other Federal and State Agencies and Standards Organizations.
If you are interested in further contact so that PTO might share problems and solutions please inform us about what you are doing.
3. If you attended our Symposia and want to follow up on some of the topics addressed , please provide your comments.
Thank you very much for helping us serve the public better
Stephen G. Kunin
Deputy Assistant Commissioner for Patent Policy and Projects
Last Modified: 27 November 1995