New Product Available from
                       U.S. Patent and Trademark Office

   The Information Products Division of the U.S. Patent and
Trademark Office (USPTO) is announcing that USAApp, a new
optical disc product, is now available for sale. USAApp is a
document delivery product that offers facsimile images of patent
application publications, including all text and drawings. The first
set of patent application publications were published on March 15,
2001. In contrast with patent grants that are published every Tuesday,
applications will be published every Thursday.

   The American Inventor Protection Act, which went into effect on
November 29, 2000 requires that certain applications filed on or after
November 29, 2000 be published eighteen months after the effective
filing date. This is a major change in the United States patent law.
Previously, U.S. patent applications were kept confidential until the
patent issued.

   Now, the application will automatically be published unless the
inventor verifies that he/she is not applying in a country other than
the U.S. and specifically requests that the application not be
published.

   Utility and plant patent applications are subject to
eighteen-month publication; design and provisional applications are not
included in the law. Patent application publications will be
distinguishable from patents by their numbering format that includes
the country code (US), the year of publication, a 7-digit numerically
sequenced number, and the kind code indicating the type of publication:

   US 2001-0000001 A1 for the first publication of a utility
application
   US 2001-0000001 P1 for the first publication of a plant application

   For more information about the eighteen-month publication
process, please refer to the USPTO Web site at
www.uspto.gov.

   USAApp is a document delivery system, not a search
system. Retrieval is by document number only from a cumulative index.
There will be one disc per week for the near future; the number will
probably increase with time, as more applications are published. This
is anticipated to occur around August 2002. The early issues of
USAApp will be published on CD-ROM but the product will
migrate to DVD-ROM when it becomes necessary.

   USAApp uses the Document Delivery for Windows
(DocDW) software that is used with the USPTO's other document delivery
products, USAPat and USAMark.

   The DocDW software allows the user to view documents directly
on the screen and move quickly from page to page within that document
or move to the next document on the disc. Drawing details or text can
be "zoomed" for easy viewing. Printing is possible from either the
view or search screen. Users can print the entire document or selected
pages. The user also has the capability to tag single or multiple
documents for printing or exporting, print or export large ranges of
document, or print or export all documents on the disc.

   USAApp is available for sale on a calendar-year
subscription basis only. The price per year is $2400. For more
information about the USAApp product, please contact the
Information Products Division at:

   Information Products Division
   Crystal Park 3, Suite 441
   Washington, DC 20231
   Phone: (703) 306-2600/Fax: (703) 306-2737
   cassis@uspto.gov

March 28, 2001                                               RONALD P. HACK
                                         (Acting) Chief Information Officer