United States Patent and Trademark Office OG Notices: 06 June 2006

                Collection of Practitioners' E-mail Addresses


   The United States Patent and Trademark Office (Office) is
undertaking to collect Internet e-mail addresses for each registered
patent attorney and patent agent. Gathering these e-mail addresses will
facilitate and increase the ability of the Office to communicate with
registered practitioners. The Office anticipates implementing automated
notifications to registered practitioners of notices and IT system
alerts. The Office also anticipates informing and inviting registered
practitioners to attend conferences and other events the Office may
hold in their areas. Availability of current Internet e-mail addresses
will facilitate sending communications to registered practitioners with
information of a non-confidential nature. 
   The e-mail information will be maintained in an electronic
database of the roster. To reduce occasions for spam and unwanted
electronic communications, the e-mail addresses will not be published,
viewable by the public on line, or otherwise made available to the public.
   The Office is in the process of implementing 37 CFR Sec. 11.11,
under which each "registered practitioner must notify the OED Director of
up to three e-mail addresses where he or she receives e-mail." The
Office of Enrollment and Discipline's database is now capable of
storing and associating each practitioner's name and registration
number with up to three e-mail addresses for each practitioner. By this
notice, practitioners are being requested to provide up to three e-mail
addresses where they can receive communications from the Office. 
   The collection of e-mail addresses is being implemented using a
two-step process. The first step is for a practitioner to send an
e-mail addressed to practitioner e-mail addresses@uspto.gov with the
following information in the following sequence in plain text: the
practitioner's last name, first name and middle name; the
practitioner's registration number; and up to three e-mail addresses
for the practitioner. The first e-mail address can be up to 129
characters, the second and third addresses combined can have no more
than a total of 125 characters. Semicolons should separate multiple
e-mail addresses from each other. The e-mail sending the addresses must
be sent from one of the three furnished addresses. 
   The second step is for the practitioner to send a confirmation
letter addressed to Mail Stop OED, United States Patent and Trademark
Office, P.O. Box 1450, Alexandria, Virginia, 22323-1450. In the
confirmation letter, the practitioner confirms over his or her original,
personal signature the submission of the e-mail addresses to be used for
the practitioner. The confirmation letter must include the same
information as in the e-mail, preferably with the e-mail addresses in the
same order. Facsimiles are not acceptable. 37 CFR Sec. 1.4(e). Letters
from law firms or corporate legal departments may provide confirmation for
several registered practitioners, but must be signed by each
practitioner. Following receipt of the confirmation letter, the e-mail
address will be copied from the received e-mail and pasted into the
database. OED will inform the practitioner by e-mail of the receipt of
the confirmation letter and the inclusion of the practitioner's e-mail
addresses on the roster. 
   Practitioners will be responsible for updating OED with each and
every change of e-mail addresses. Until further notice, the e-mail
addresses must be updated using the forgoing steps.
   Plain text is necessary inasmuch as the e-mail addresses will be pasted
from the e-mail into the database. Practitioners will be responsible
for the correctness of the e-mail addresses submitted to and included
in the database. Accordingly, the correctness of the each e-mail
address should be checked before it is submitted. Please do not submit
e-mail addresses in PDF format or anything other than plain text.
Office personnel will not type e-mail address information into the
database that is submitted in PDF or other formats. Submission of
e-mail addresses in PDF format or other means requiring the address to
be typed into a database will not be accepted. 
   If more than three e-mail addresses are submitted, only the first three
e-mail addresses will be used. The e-mail addresses will not be
disseminated to the public. 
   Regarding business, not e-mail, addresses, practitioners should check,
and where necessary, update their business address and telephone number
on the roster. Practitioners may view the information regarding them
that is available on the roster at: http://des.uspto.gov/OEDCI/. Any
changes to the information on the roster, must be made by submitting a
change of address form that is available at: http://www.uspto.gov/web/
offices/dcom/olia/oed/addchangefrm.pdf. Changes of business addresses
cannot be accepted by e-mail, but must use the change of address form
available at
http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/dcom/olia/oed/addchangefrm.pdf.

May 11, 2006                                                 HARRY I. MOATZ
                                      Director of Enrollment and Discipline