ASSOCIATION FORCED TO FILE SECOND ACTION AGAINST THE UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
Organization Cries Foul As Patent and Trademark Office Resumes Destructive Course

WASHINGTON, DC June 19 - The National Intellectual Property Researchers Association (NIPRA) today filed a second action in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, seeking to bring the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) into compliance with section 4804(d)(2) of the American Inventors Protection Act. This action seeks to block the new USPTO plan to eliminate the public patent and trademark paper collections, critical collections relied upon for accurate intellectual property research.

The lawsuit seeks to enjoin the USPTO from its announced plan to resume dismantling its paper collection of patents and trademarks. Despite overwhelmingly negative comment and public surveys demonstrating the public reliance on the collections, the USPTO has ignored public outcry and again embarked on the destruction of the country's most valuable Intellectual Property resource.

As a result of the initial action filed by NIPRA, the USPTO rescinded its earlier certification to Congress and instituted an expedited plan to resume updating and maintenance of the paper collections. Subsequently, that plan was included as part of the settlement agreement executed by the parties in April of 2003. In exchange for the provisions of the plan and recovery of its legal fees, NIPRA agreed to a stipulated dismissal without prejudice.

Within weeks of the settlement, the USPTO submitted a second, to date unpublished, certification to Congress so that it could again attempt to eliminate the public patent and trademark paper collections. In that certification, Director Rogan acknowledged the specific deficiencies brought to light in the initial NIPRA action and provided for the retention of the records affected by those specific deficiencies. The report does not address the other errors present in the databases that affect the records the USPTO does plan to eliminate. Although the agency spent considerable resources to verify and document the specific deficiencies reported by NIPRA, the assertions in the May 9, 2003 Certification were not supported by any substantial evidence and contained numerous factual errors, unsupported factual claims and assumptions. As a result, NIPRA has been forced to again seek judicial relief.

NIPRA reasserts that it is not opposed in principle to the USPTO's plan to migrate to a fully automated search environment, but that the maintenance of the paper collections is required until the automated search systems are improved and provide fully equivalent search results to a combined search of the paper and electronic records.

New USPTO and independent studies report substantial data error rates in the automated databases, and document thousands of missing or corrupt registrations in the USPTO search systems. Thus, the USPTO assertion that "the functionality of the USPTO's classified paper files is fully duplicated by a combination of secure and reliable electronic systems" is disingenuous and NIPRA warrants that the premature elimination of the paper search collections will compromise patent and trademark quality.

NIPRA is a not-for-profit association of Intellectual Property attorneys, agents and professional researchers organized to promote and protect the quality and integrity of the USPTO patent and trademark records and search systems.

Press Release of January 14, 2003

Press Release of August 26, 2002