United States Patent and Trademark Office OG Notices: 06 August 2002

                         Temporary Office Problems in
                        Routing of Some Correspondence
                           Transmitted By Facsimile

   The U. S. Patent and Trademark Office (Office) experienced
temporary problems routing some correspondence transmitted by facsimile
to the Office's automated facsimile system from May 7, 2002 to May 15,
2002. As a consequence of these routing problems, automated
acknowledgements (receipts faxed back to sender) were not sent and
delays in associating the faxes with the proper applications were
encountered. These problems have been solved, and all facsimile
transmissions that were affected were printed and distributed to the
designated Office addressees by May 23, 2002. The Office's automated
facsimile system telephone numbers are those numbers with an area code
of 703 and a prefix of 746 or 872 (e.g., 703-746-xxxx). While the
Office did have problems with some facsimile transmissions, most of the
faxes received by the Office's automated facsimile system were properly
routed during this period. Office fax numbers with a 703 area code and
other prefixes (e.g., 703-305-xxxx and 703-308-xxxx) were not affected.

   The routing problems occurred due to an error when the Office
was testing the automated facsimile system which caused some of the
faxes received during this period to be routed to the test system
instead of the correct telephone facsimile number addressee. None of
the facsimile transmissions were lost. Although the affected facsimile
transmissions have been rerouted to the correct addressees, the Office
has not and will not send a facsimile receipt back to the sender
because the sending of the receipt is an automated process that occurs
only at the time of initial facsimile receipt.

   If you have a question relating to the status of a
communication that was faxed to the Office within the period from May
7, 2002 to May 15, 2002, please contact the appropriate Customer
Service Representative, e.g., for an application in a Technology
Center, please contact the Customer Service Representative of that
Technology Center; for a newly filed application in the Office of
Initial Patent Examination (OIPE), please contact the Customer Service
Center in OIPE at (703) 308-1202; and for an application that has been
allowed, including issue and publication fee payments, please contact
the Customer Service Center of the Office of Publications at (703)
305-8283.

   Questions concerning this notice should be directed to Michael
Lewis, Legal Advisor, Office of Patent Legal Administration at (703)
308-6906.

July 10, 2002                                              STEPHEN G. KUNIN
                                                    Deputy Commissioner for
                                                  Patent Examination Policy