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North Dakota Researchers at the Frontiers of Science
Infrastructure Improvement Programs
North Dakota universities have attracted outstanding faculty members because of ND EPSCoR New Faculty Start-Up Awards. These awards have supported the principal investigators in successfully obtaining major federal grants. Among these are Kalpana Katti, Peter Meberg, Paul Kucera, and Roxanne Vaughan.
Kalpana Katti, North Dakota State University Assistant
Professor of Civil Engineering, received ND EPSCoR support for
researching nacre, which led to NSF-funded research. Katti is
studying how nacre, the inner layer of seashells, is constructed
so that its structure at the nanoscale level can be used in
the manufacturing of structures that are strong, tough, light
in weight, and damage resistant, such as buildings, aircraft,
battlefield tanks, and prosthetic limbs. Katti also received
a coveted NSF CAREER Award to support her research on bone replacement
Dr. Peter Meberg, University of North Dakota
Assistant Professor of Biology, used his Start-Up Award to purchase
a specialized camera on a microscope to take pictures of neurons
so that he could better understand how neurons grow and connect
with other neurons. He has since received a NSF Career Award
and a NIH Area Grant to support his research. With the Career
Award, he is incorporating his research methods into the curriculum
at UND. Meberg also has obtained ND EPSCoR Advanced Undergraduate
Research Awards (AURA) to support students who work in his lab.
In the picture on the right, Meberg watches research associate
Cheng Bai.
Paul Kucera, Assistant Professor of Atmospheric Sciences,
said that his Start-Up Award was a "big incentive" for him to
come to the University of North Dakota. With this award, he
obtained computer equipment and software critical to his research.
Since then, he has obtained two NASA grants and used the equipment
to process Polarimetric radar data. This research will help
meteorologists to better understand the internal characteristics
of storms such as the distribution and movement of raindrops,
snow, and hail within the clouds. This research could significantly
improve climate prediction models of the atmosphere and improve
rainfall estimation which is critical for the management of
water resources. The U.S. network of Doppler weather radars
are expected to be upgraded to incorporate polarimetric technology
in the next 10-15 years.
Roxanne Vaughan, Associate Professor of Biochemistry,
was attracted to the University of North Dakota because of the
Start-Up Award, "impressive facilities" at the UND Medical School,
clean North Dakota air, and "family-oriented" community. Her
Start-Up Award enabled her to publish continuously and to obtain
external grants. Through her study of a dopamine transporter,
Vaughan hopes to discover how the body controls the level of
dopamine in the brain. Dopamine is a substance that affects
feelings of well-being and motor action. Results of her research
could help combat drug addiction.
Science Outreach and Recruitment Programs
Tom Gonnella, Mayville State University (MSU) Assistant
Professor of Chemistry/Physics, has worked with Dakota Technologies,
Inc. through the ND-EPSCoR Faculty in Technology Transfer (FITT)
program to develop novel fluorescence methods. Through ND EPSCoR's
BRIN program, Gonella will initiate an undergraduate research
program where students will apply the technology being developed
at DTI. They will assess the extent to which they can resolve
complex mixtures of fluorescently labeled species in order to
improve the accuracy and efficiency in DNA sequencing.
Brian Slator, North Dakota Sate University Computer
Science Professor, received a ND EPSCoR Seed Grant to help launch
his interactive, educational software-development career. Slator
uses a field-trip approach in his software programs that provide
students with exciting role-based learning experiences. Game
titles include Virtual Cell World, Dollar Bay, and Geology Explorer.
With Geology Explorer, students collect virtual data and perform
virtual experiments. Given his success with seed grant funds,
Dr. Slator and his colleagues successfully competed for a $1.94M
grant from the National Science Foundation to continue instructional
software development.
G. Padmanabhan, North Dakota State University Chair
and Professor of Civil Engineering, Dr. Robert Pieri, NDSU Professor
of Mechanical Engineering, and Dr. Carol Davis, Vice President
of Turtle Mountain Community College (TMCC) have collaborated
on an initiative to increase Native American participation in
science, engineering, and mathematics (SEM). The ND EPSCoR Faculty
Laboratory and Innovative Teaching Enhancement (FLITE) program
supports the initiative through workshops for tribal college
faculty and students on new and innovative SEM topics and purchase
of equipment and supplies that remained at the tribal colleges.
Curriculum development also is being enhanced by new videoconferencing
capabilities supported by ND EPSCoR's Biomedical
Research Infrastructure Network (BRIN).
Victoria Gelling obtained a ND EPSCoR Advanced Undergraduate
Research Award (AURA) to support her work with University of
North Dakota Chemistry Professor Irina Smoliakova. After earning
a BS in Chemistry, Gelling completed her doctoral work in Chemistry
at North Dakota State University (NDSU). After earning her PhD,
she was able to stay and live in Fargo because she was hired
as a Senior Research Associate by the NDSU Department of Polymers
and Coatings. In this position, she conducts research with a
group of faculty whose aim is to develop coatings that prevent
corrosion of artwork, aircraft, vehicles, and transportation
infrastructure, such as bridges.
Brackel, a senior majoring in Geology at the University
of North Dakota, received a ND EPSCoR Advanced Undergraduate
Research Award (AURA) that enabled him to map the surface of
Mars. Using previously unanalyzed National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA) data, he discovered promising spaceship
landing sites where energy resources might be found below the
surface of the planet.
|Nicole Very: "I made the decision to attend North Dakota State University because I was offered a research position through the ND EPSCoR Science Bound program. Without this program, I would not have stayed in North Dakota for college. Because of my undergraduate research experience, I am now pursuing a Ph.D. in Cellular and Molecular Biology."
Technology Transfer and Commercialization Programs
Dakota State University Chemistry Professor, Dr. Greg
Gillispie, used ND EPSCoR funds to assemble advanced
laser equipment and to support graduate students and postdoctoral
researchers. This funding allowed him to conduct research in
new areas, particularly the real-time measurement of chemical
information via laser-induced fluorescence. Gillispie and his
former graduate student, Randy St. Germain, established Dakota
Technologies, Inc. (DTI) in Fargo, in 1993, to accelerate commercialization
of the laser technology. DTI's workforce has since grown to
17 employees. The company has been awarded more than $8 million
in research contracts and has commercialized several products
and environmental services.
worldwide may someday obtain more effective vaccinations for
diseases because of research work done by Michael
Chambers. As an ND EPSCoR Advanced Undergraduate
Research Awards (AURA) program participant, Chambers worked
with NDSU biotechnology faculty on DNA-immunization. He continued
work on the potential uses of DNA vaccines with ND EPSCoR
Commercialization Seed Funds and then established and is CEO
of Aldevron, a biotechnology company located in Fargo.
Student and Faculty Technology Transfer Programs
North Dakota businesses are encouraged to increase their research and development of new products because of ND EPSCoR's Students in Technology Transfer and Research (STTAR) and Faculty in Technology Transfer (FITT) programs.
Students in Technology Transfer Program (STTAR)
Robert Smette, an Industrial Technology senior was paid to find solutions to science and technology problems identified by North Dakota manufacturing company, PS Doors, in Grand Forks. Smette prepared a working model of an electric gate that raises and lowers automatically that Smette designed and built. Among other projects, Smette designed a flood shield for the steam tunnels at North Dakota State University.
Johnson, a senior majoring in Food and Nutrition
at North Dakota State University, received an award from the
ND EPSCoR Students in Technology Transfer and Research (STTAR)
program. These funds allowed her to work during the summer
with the Institute of Business and Industry Development testing
ingredients and final products from thirty food processors
or restaurants in the state.
Faculty in Technology Transfer Program (FITT)
|Dr. Selmer Moen, Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science at Minot State University received ND EPSCoR Faculty In Technology Transfer (FITT) grants to assist Killdeer Mountain Manufacturing in their development of aircraft test flight circuit boards.


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New York City Landmarks Law
Sometimes listed as New York City's Landmarks Preservation Law.
In 1965, the New York City Landmarks Law was enacted in order to protect historic landmarks and neighborhoods from precipitate decisions to destroy or fundamentally alter their character. The law also established the creation of a permanent Landmarks Preservation Commission. The Commission is authorized to designate a building to be a "landmark" on a particular "landmark site," or to designate an area as a "historic district." The legal definition of a landmark stipulates that the building must be at least 30 years old, and have either historical or architectural merit, as determined by the Commission1. The New York City Board of Estimate (a now defunct city agency) was thereafter allowed to modify or disapprove of the designation. The property owner may seek judicial review of the final designation decision. The owner of the designated landmark is legally required to maintain the building's exterior "in good repair," and to secure Commission approval before any exterior alterations are made2.
Involvement with Preservation Campaigns and Related Activies
The Landmarks Law was enacted in response to New Yorkers' growing concern that important physical elements of the city's history were being lost, despite the fact that these architecturally rich buildings could be preserved or reused3.
- 1962 - Geoffrey Platt and the pre-law Landmarks Preservation Commission began studying and reviewing the subject of landmark protection legislation4.
- May 7, 1964 - After spending years carefully crafting legislation with the help of Harmon Goldstone, Geoffrey Platt laid a draft of the proposed Landmarks Law on Mayor Robert Wagner's desk5.
- The Municipal Art Society (under the leadership of president Giorgio Cavaglieri), the American Institute of Architects, the Fine Arts Federation, the Architectural League and the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society supported the legislation6.
- September 1964 - As the draft of the Landmarks Law continued to sit on the mayor's desk, the New York press announced that the Brokaw Mansions, located at East 79th Street and Fifth Avenue were going to be demolished7.
- September 26, 1964 - Citizens protested in a demonstration in front of the Brokaw Mansions, and called for the creation of legislation to save their landmarks8.
- The threat to the Brokaw Mansions, highlighted by the extensive press coverage, helped move the draft of the landmarks legislation off of Mayor Wagner's desk and into the City Council9.
- October 6, 1964 - The New York Times revealed that "a bill to preserve the city's architectural heritage had been introduced into the city council"10.
- December 3, 1964 - The legislation was introduced in a public hearing by its three sponsors, Councilman Seymour Boyers, Robert Low and Richard S. Aldrich. Their names appear on the law11.
- February 6, 1965 - Demolition of the Brokaw Mansions began12. The actual demolition of the Brokaw Mansions (in conjunction with the past loss of countless landmark structures) helped move the landmarks legislation out of the City Council committee that was reviewing it13.
- The City Council committee made several revisions to the original bill. The council added the stipulation that each borough must be represented on the Landmarks Preservation Commission, and required any structure to be considered a landmark to be "30 years or older"14. In response to pressure from real estate interests, the City Council removed the "400-foot provision," which would have granted the Commission jurisdiction over all property within 400 feet of a landmark15. The City Council also added a moratorium clause into the legislation. The clause stated that after an initial eighteen month period for designations, there would be a subsequent thirty-six month period during which the Commission could not designate any properties. "Successive 6-month designating and 36 month non-designating periods would follow"16.
- Preservation supporters conceded to the City Council's alterations, however, the proposed landmarks legislation still faced a great deal of opposition from real estate developers. The Real Estate Board of New York, the Commerce and Industry Association of New York, Downtown Lower Manhattan Association and the Avenue of Americas Association ardently opposed the bill17.
- April 19, 1965 - Despite opposition from real estate developers, Mayor Robert Wagner signed the bill into law. The Landmarks Law of 1965 went into effect immediately18.
- The first building granted landmark status in 1965 was the 300 year-old Pieter Claesen Wyckoff House. Since then, the Landmarks Preservation Commission has designated nearly 23,000 New York City landmarks19.
1973 Amendments to the Landmarks Law
The 1973 amendments to New York City's Landmarks Law established interior landmarks, scenic landmarks, instituted continuous hearings and designation (ending the mandated moratorium limiting designations to a 6-month period every three years), and otherwise transformed the workings of the Landmarks Preservation Commission20.
- Today, the Landmarks Law continues to be the most significant tool used by preservationists in the fight to protect their cherished landmarks.
Charles B. Hosmer Collection, National Trust for Historic Preservation Library Collection and Archives, Special Collections, University of Maryland at College Park Libraries.
A complete list of Hosmer's interviewees can be accessed at: http://www.lib.umd.edu/NTL/hosmerindex.pdf
Archives, Personal files, and Ephemura
Charles B. Hosmer Collection, National Trust for Historic Preservation Library Collection and Archives, Special Collections, University of Maryland at College Park Libraries.
A complete list of Hosmer's interviewees can be accessed at: http://www.lib.umd.edu/NTL/hosmerindex.pdf
The records and minutes of the City Council of New York at:
City Hall Library
31 Chambers Street, Room 112
New York, NY 10007
Open to the public Monday, Wednesday, Thursday:
10 AM to 4 PM
Tuesday, Friday: 10 AM to 12 PM
Christine Bruzzese, Supervising Librarian.
For more information, call 311 or (212) NEW-YORK if outside of New York City.
- 1. Ennis, Thomas, "Landmarks Bill Signed By Mayor," New York Times, April 20, 1965.
- 2. The Landmarks Law as summarized in the Penn Central Transportation Co. V. New York City Case, 438 U.S. 104 (1978).
- 3. Landmarks Preservation Commission's Website
- 4. Wood, Anthony C. Preserving New York: Winning the Right to Protect A City's Landmarks. (New York: Routledge, 2007). Page 339.
- 5. Charles Hosmer's Interview with Harmon Goldstone, June 23, 1982.
- 6. Copy of text of telegram on Municipal Art Society letterhead, September 17, 1964.
- 7. Huxtable, Ada Louis, "Despair of Demolition," New York Times, September 17, 1964; Ennis, Thomas, "Landmark Mansion on 79th Street To Be Razed," New York Times, September 17, 1964.
- 8. Asbury, Edith, "City Moved to save Mansions is Urged: Brokaw Demolitions Scored by Speakers at rally," New York Times September 27, 1964.
- 9. Hosmer interview with Goldstone.
- 10. O'Kane, Lawrence, "City Council Gets Landmarks Bill," New York Times, October 7, 1964.
- 11. "Queens Councilman Presides at Landmarks Bill Hearings," Long Island Post, December 10-13, 1964.
- 12. "Rape of the Brokaw Mansion," New York Times, February 8, 1965.
- 13. Wood, Anthony C. Preserving New York: Winning the Right to Protect A City's Landmarks. (New York: Routledge, 2007). Page 352.
- 14. "Report of the Committee on Codification in Favor of Adopting," Proceedings of the Council of the City of New York from January 6 to June 29, 1965, vol. 1, 500; As recounted in (Wood, Preserving New York, 352).
- 15. Giorgio Cavaglieri to E.H. Fullilove, chair, Board of Government Building Trades Employers Association, February 9, 1965.
- 16. "News of the Municipal Art Society," March 1965; Ennis, Thomas, "Landmarks Get City Protection," New York Times, April 11, 1965.
- 17. Ennis, Thomas, "Landmarks Bill Signed By Mayor," New York Times, April 20, 1965.
- 18. Ibid.
- 19. The Landmarks Preservation Commission's website
- 20. The Historic Districts Council Newsstand

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Complete Guide to Insurance Coding and Billing on CD
Build your practice to the next level.This manual contains all of the necessary billing & documentation forms, codes, terminology, instructions, guidelines, and information needed to accept medical referrals from physicians and to bill and collect from insurance companies. The manual is generic and can be used in any state so long as you are acting within your scope of practice and as long as the insurance companies are willing to pay.
Insurance Billing Manual is the ORIGINAL, written especially for massage therapists.
The manual has been kept revised and updated as changes occur. With the purchase
of this manual you will automatically receive a yearly update of CPT codes
as they are released by the AMA.
This comprehensive insurance billing manual is the perfect complement to your Massage Office software.


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Thursday Feb 28 2013
Hometown News
Roseville resident earns academic honors in Boston
Alex R. Yamamoto, of Roseville, has been named to the Dean's List at Boston University for the fall semester.
Boston University is the fourth largest independent university in the United States, with an enrollment of more than 29,000 students in its 17 schools and colleges. The university offers grounding in the liberal arts and a broad range of programs in the arts, sciences, engineering and professional areas.


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A pilot suffered minor injuries when his small plane crashed Wednesday afternoon near the mouth of the Bering River, about 60 miles southeast of Cordova, according to the Alaska Air National Guard.
Guard rescuers in a helicopter reached the downed plane and its pilot a little more than two hours after the crash and flew him to Anchorage, Guard spokesman Maj. Guy Hayes said. Hayes did not publicly identify the injured man.
The pilot made two distress calls -- one by radio, the other on a transponder -- about 3:45 p.m. Wednesday while the Piper PA-18 Super Cub was still aloft, Hayes said. An HC-130 King airplane and an HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopter launched from Anchorage, with the plane reaching the pilot's position first, about 5:50 p.m., Hayes said.
The HC-130's crew dropped a package with a radio to the pilot, and the rescuers were able to talk to the man, Hayes said.
"They were able to talk to pilot and let him know they were coming to get him. It sounded like he had pretty minor injuries," Hayes said.
The HH-60 arrived a short time later, picked up the pilot, and flew him to Anchorage, Hayes said. The calls for distress, and the transponder alert that pinpointed the downed plane's location, made for a speedy rescue, Hayes said.
"They didn't have to search for him," Hayes said. "For a plane crash, this couldn't have turned out any better than it did."
Reach Casey Grove at firstname.lastname@example.com or 257-4589.
By CASEY GROVE


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Article Date: 11/1/2010
■ The EC 100, from Eye Photo Systems, Inc., is a high-resolution digital anterior segment camera that mounts to your slit lamp. The device, which was developed by an optometrist, enables live viewing, video capture and still image capture. Also, it contains a movable beam-splitter and adjustable aperture to allow unobstructed views with a selectable field of depth. Finally, it features Easy Capture technology, which auto-calibrates the device to the cornea, lens, conjunctiva, iris, retina, etc.
Eye Photo Systems, Inc.Phone: (888) 528-9701Web: www.eyephotosystems.com
The EC 100 enables live viewing, video capture and still image capture.
■ The 4x Mobilux Hand-held Magnifier, from Eschenbach Optik, is a 75mm x 50mm rectangular hybrid lens comprised of an upper refractive lens and a lower multi-order diffractive lens. This results in a 16.00D lens, which provides a wide field of view, the company says. In addition to the lens, the magnifier features a bright LED light that lasts for 10,000 hours and a removable plastic lens cover to protect the lens.
Eschenbach OptikPhone:(800) 487-5389Web: www.eschenbach.com
■ The P200 Dx, from Optos, is a scanning laser ophthalmoscope designed for wellness screenings. It provides improved image quality compared with the previous model, the P200. Specifically, it provides you with improved image detail in the central pole as well as the periphery. In addition, the device offers historical image overlay and e-mail capability, so you can provide patients with a 3D Wrap video of their Optomap image.
Optos PlcPhone:(800) 854-3039Web: www.optos.com
The P200DX provides improved image detail in the central pole as well as the periphery.
■ Juicy Couture's Create sunwear, manufactured by Safilo Group, is a "vintage-inspired oversized plastic shape frame" that features a "keyhole" bridge design. In addition, it comes with an extra pair of contrasting-colored temples: black with pink temples, tortoise with coral temples, coral with aqua temples and blue with white temples. Finally, the left temple of the Create sunwear line includes the Juicy Couture logo, while the company's signature heart-shape cutout can be found on the right temple tip.
Safilo GroupPhone: (800) 631-1188Web: www.safilo.com
The Create sunwear line comes with an extra pair of contrasting-colored temples.
• MaxiAids, a low vision supplier for Independent Living and its Vision Care Professionals division, have announced they've been selected as the exclusive North American distributors of Obrira precision optics. Visit www.maxiaids.com.
• MaximEyes electronic health records, from First Insight, now directly integrates with the AFC Pro Photographer Fundus camera, from NIDEK.
• Alcon recently introduced the WaveLight Refractive Suite, which is comprised of the company's 200 kHz WaveLight FS200 femtosecond laser, the 500 Hz WaveLight EX500 excimer laser and WaveNet, which is an integrated computer network that provides patient data transfer within the Refractive Suite.
Optometric Management, Issue: November 2010


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1 year in high school, eight years in junior high. Over the past few years I have taught LA and Social Studies at all grade levels in junior high, and Career & Life Management, Resource, and English to grades 10 through 12. I have also taught Legal Studies, Foods, Dance, Film Studies, Media & Advertising, Leadership, and Fashion Studies.
I employ inquiry-based learning and critical thinking strategies, yet still believe that some direct instruction in the foundations of reading and writing are key. In my junior high classroom the relationship with my students is of primary importance. I want my students to develop higher-order thinking skills and devote a lot of prep time to creating innovative and engaging activities that give my students the best opportunity to demonstrate their learning. Some of these activities work beautifully, others not so much - but that's part of the fun! Generally I develop my courses from scratch every year, but the majority of the activities that I post on TPT are the staples that I adapt to each grade level/curriculum and use over and over again.
Yet to be added
University of Victoria Bachelor of Arts - Medieval History and English Literature University of Calgary Bachelor of Education - Secondary Language Arts and Social Studies University of New Brunswick Master of Education - Curriculum Studies
Mother to two boys (5 years old and 3 years old), I am currently teaching grade 9 and grade 7 at a brand new, state-of-the-art middle school in Alberta, Canada with cutting edge technology (and serious angst about photocopying, to my chagrin).
PreK, Kindergarten, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, Homeschool, Staff
English Language Arts, Creative Writing, Writing-Expository, Reading, Spelling, Vocabulary, Social Studies - History, Civics, Elections - Voting, Government, European History, World History, Middle Ages, ELA Test Prep, Canadian History, British History, Other (Social Studies - History), Other (ELA), For All Subject Areas, Literature, Economics , Criminal Justice - Law, Short Stories, Writing, Asian Studies, Writing-Essays, Back to School


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- Homepage >
- News Archives >
- Article
Afghan Army combat camera team becomes first in eastern Afghanistan
December 28, 2011
By French Army 1st Lt. Aurelie Lattès, RC-East Public Affairs
Related Links
KAPISA PROVINCE, Afghanistan (Dec. 28, 2011) -- Afghan National Army troops now have the skills and equipment to document their successes in securing eastern Afghanistan.
French combat camera soldiers with Task Force La Fayette's video and photography team, enhanced by a military officer from France, conducted a two-week course taught on the role of combat camera teams and their equipment.
In another step towards autonomy for the Afghan National Army, or ANA, Afghan leadership from the 31st Kandak, 201st ANA Corps sent an officer, NCO and enlisted photographer to train with the French at Forward Operating Base Tagab, from Nov. 30 to Dec. 14.
The training included the theory and basic rules of photography and design. French instructors conducted an intensive and personalized program, focusing on practical exercises. Throughout the course, students learned the basic techniques of image and audio capturing, and processing both still and video for final editing and use.
"I could not imagine that we can get this level with them after only three weeks of training," said French 1st Lt. Bérangère, the lead instructor. "Their motivation is clear. Sometimes I go to the workroom, they are there, going back over the training. It's nice."
For this initial Afghan combat camera team, French instructors outfitted the team with a Nikon D80 digital still camera, two Nikon lenses, a Sony Z1 handheld camcorder, and two editing workstations.
The course ended with an operational phase. The team shooting a combined Afghan and French patrol conducted in the market of Tagab. With the training complete, the French will continue to coach and mentor their Afghan partners until they can operate independently.
"The videographer surprised us all. He understood the technical side, but also had a flair for the artistic," said Bérangère. "He is now able to capture and edit alone a finished product, with a voiceover."
With additional training scheduled for 2012, the French hope to see the ANA take action to promote their capabilities and capacities to both internal and external audiences.


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We in the ASA Research and Development Department call your attention to Wiley Publishing's free iPhone and iPad app, Sociology Spotlight, which allows users to view information about various sociology professional conferences, peer-reviewed journal abstracts, a sample of freely-available journal articles, and other material of interest. We invite our readers to discuss how they have used apps for mobile devices in their studies or research, including, for example, e-books. Students: to what extent have you used e-books in your coursework? Instructors, professors, researchers, and practitioners: to what extent have you assigned e-books in your courses or have you used information-gathering smartphone apps?
ASA's Bookstore offers a number of e-books, including a research brief published by the Research Department. ASA e-books are available to ASA members at a member price.


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St Jean de Cole Travel guide
Travel & Local
by Panoramic-plus
Developer Notes
Travel guide of Dordogne, area of Villars St Jean de Cole, France. Guide book in flash and HTML 5 format : content 42 pages of text. The guide is giving information about the area the Trincou and Cole valleys : hotels, restaurants, activities, historic and archeological curiosities, interacting...


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Continued Progress Toward Implementing Patent Quality Executive Actions
Blog by Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Deputy Director of the USPTO Michelle K. Lee
Last June, the White House issued a number of executive actions aimed, in part, at ensuring the highest quality patents possible. One of the executive actions addresses the possibility of overly broad patent claims, particularly in the context of software, and called for the USPTO to provide new targeted training to its examiners on scrutiny of functional claims.
I am pleased to report that we are delivering targeted training to the examining corps on this topic. We will have more to report at our next Software Partnership meeting, but I wanted to take the opportunity to provide you with some information now.
Over the last year, we've rolled out four training modules focused on examining functional claim limitations that fall under 35 U.S.C. § 112(f)—so-called "means-plus-function" claim limitations. The four training modules cover the basics of interpreting functional limitations under § 112(f), including identifying when § 112(f) is or is not invoked, establishing the broadest reasonable interpretation of the limitation, and determining whether a § 112(f) limitation, especially a software-related limitation, has definite boundaries. Additionally, and most importantly, the training provides tools for examiners to clarify the prosecution record and thereby positively affect the clarity of the claims. These tools include establishing on the record whether the claim limitation is being interpreted under § 112(f), explaining the claim interpretation, and providing written remarks to help define the boundaries of the claim, when appropriate.
Such additional clarification by the examiner will create a more robust record and provide an opportunity for the applicant to provide clarifying remarks as well. We believe that spelling out how the claim language has been interpreted during prosecution will assist the public and the courts in understanding the boundaries of the issued claims.
We will soon be issuing more refresher training, for example on the fundamentals of claim interpretation, particularly with respect to functional claim limitations that do not invoke § 112(f). A list of the previous and planned upcoming training modules can be found at our Executive Actions webpage.
To ensure that training principles are applied by examiners, the Office of Patent Quality Assurance refined the metrics used to evaluate Office Actions. We will be evaluating the frequency at which the examiners are clarifying the record and the accuracy of the interpretation of § 112(f) claim limitations.
If you'd like to learn more or have questions or comments, I encourage you to attend our next Software Partnership meeting Tuesday, July 22, 2014, from 1-4:30 p.m. at our Alexandria campus. You may also attend online via WebEx.
Whether you are a patent applicant or litigant or a representative of either, we welcome your input on any of the above. All of the training materials are posted on our Examiner Guidance and Training Materials webpage, which can also be accessed from the USPTO.gov home page using the "Patent Examiner Guidance" button. We have also created a designated email box for comments at firstname.lastname@example.com.
We at the USPTO remain committed to issuing the highest quality patents possible. This training is but one part of a much broader initiative to enhance quality, and to do so in concert with the public. I look forward to your continued input.
Posted at 10:39AM Jul 03, 2014 in USPTO |
Update on Our Satellite Offices
Blog by Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Deputy Director of the USPTO Michelle K. Lee
Welcome to the latest in a regular series of updates on the status of our satellite offices in Dallas, Denver, Detroit, and Silicon Valley. As you know, the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act of 2011 (AIA), signed into law by President Obama, requires the USPTO to establish regional satellite locations as part of a larger effort to modernize the U.S. patent system. These offices are so important to inventors, entrepreneurs, and small businesses in the surrounding regions—and to our agency's core mission of fostering American innovation and competitiveness.
If you haven't already heard, June 30, 2014 is the date we're opening our permanent satellite office in Denver, Colorado. Located in the Byron G. Rogers Federal Building in the city's central business district, the new office will help the region's entrepreneurs get cutting-edge ideas to the marketplace faster, grow their businesses, enable them to create new, high-skilled jobs in the Rocky Mountain region, and allow them to more efficiently navigate the world's strongest intellectual property system.
The other big news is that we have hired a Regional Director for the Denver office—Russell Slifer, who has practiced intellectual property law for the last 20 years. For the past eight years, Russ served as the Chief Patent Counsel for Micron Technology in Boise, Idaho. He also was a design engineer for Honeywell and spent more than nine years in private practice in Minnesota helping high technology clients, including individual inventors, universities, and Fortune 100 companies, build patent portfolios to protect their innovations. Russ is an active member in the legal and innovation communities. These experiences make Russ an ideal person to serve as the inaugural leader of our new satellite office for the Rocky Mountain region, and I look forward to him transitioning in as part of our senior leadership team.
Keep in mind our Denver office needs more than just a director. We're currently accepting applications for Administrative Patent Judges, a Deputy Regional Director for Outreach, Computer Engineering Patent Examiners and Electrical Engineering Patent Examiners. The deadlines to apply for these jobs vary and some are coming soon, so if you want to apply, please do so quickly.
The Elijah J. McCoy Satellite Office in Detroit opened for business in July 2012 and continues to play a vital role for the agency and the local innovation community. We have hired and trained 100 patent examiners who are processing patent applications in one of our nation's historic innovation hubs. Our eight administrative patent judges are managing appeal cases and America Invents Act trials, and this summer, will move into a new space that includes a hearing room. We recently posted a job announcement for a Regional Director of the Detroit office, who will be responsible for general oversight of the office as the most senior ranking official representing the USPTO. We have also posted an Administrative Patent Judge vacancy announcement for the Detroit office, for which relocation incentives may be authorized. Please help us spread the word about these vacancies. The application deadline for the Regional Director position is July 1, 2014, and the Administrative Patent Judge position is July 31, 2014.
In April, the San Jose City Council unanimously approved the terms and conditions for our permanent facility in the San Jose City Hall. It will include a large outreach center on the first floor of the wing that is on track to open in the spring of 2015 and office space that will open a few months later. We are also looking for a Deputy Regional Director for Outreach for this office, and the deadline to apply is June 25, 2014. We are also actively engaged with stakeholders in the Silicon Valley and across the region. Since my last update, we've hosted several events to gather input and suggestions from our customers as we look for ways to further improve our nation's IP system. These included discussions on the administrative trials before our Patent Trial and Appeal Board, a focus on Trademark operations, a patent rulemaking roundtable on collecting attributable ownership information, and a multi-stakeholder forum on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
Finally, our Dallas satellite office is scheduled to open in the fall of 2015 in the Terminal Annex Federal Building in downtown Dallas. We have hired five Administrative Patent Judges who have been operating out of the Santa Fe Federal Building. We continue to engage with local partners such as the Dallas Entrepreneur Center to support the innovation community, start-ups, and entrepreneurs.
We continue to hire Patent Trial and Appeal Board judges for all of our satellite office locations. Our goal is to have at least 20 in each office who will work to reduce the inventory of trial and appeal cases. In addition, we expect to recruit patent examiners for Silicon Valley and Dallas offices closer to the dates when their respective permanent spaces near completion. All vacancy announcements for these offices will be posted on usajobs.gov.
I feel that these satellite offices are critical to our efforts to support innovation and creativity, help protect and foster American innovation in the global marketplace, help businesses cut through red tape, and create new economic opportunities locally. This is an exciting time, not just for the USPTO, but for the men and women from coast to coast who are building, creating, and marketing America's future. I will continue to keep you informed about major new developments in these offices as they arise.
Posted at 04:33PM Jun 16, 2014 in USPTO | Comments[1]
USPTO to Launch a Glossary Pilot Program that Will Support a Better Patent System
Blog by Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Deputy Director of the USPTO Michelle K. Lee
When President Obama last year announced a handful of executive actions to build a better patent system, one of those actions focused on improving clarity in patent claims. The president recognized that patents with clearly defined boundaries help others avoid costly and needless litigation down the road. I'm excited to share with you some details on our Glossary Pilot Program. I hope many will take advantage of this opportunity to work with the office and assess the impact of glossaries on patent clarity.
First, the basics. On March 27, we published a Federal Register Notice announcing the Glossary Pilot Program. It started on June 2, 2014, and will run for six months or until 200 petitions are granted. The pilot program is designed to be flexible and accommodating to all application drafting styles, with a goal of determining if including a glossary aids in patent prosecution, and results in greater claim clarity.
To participate in the pilot program, a patent applicant must include a glossary in a designated portion of the patent disclosure that provides clear definitions for some terms used in the claims. The glossary should assist a reader in understanding the invention disclosed. Our team examining the use of glossaries found that some applicants already use them in patent applications. Therefore, the pilot program was created to promote the use of glossaries in software related technology applications to evaluate the impact definitions in the glossary section have on enhancing patent quality and improving the clarity of patent claims.
After a review of internal and external stakeholder input, the glossary pilot was designed to be flexible with regards to the types of definitions provided, so that we can see what applicants submit, and evaluate the different styles of glossaries submitted for the pilot program.
So who needs to pay attention to this? Clearly for patent applicants, owners, and practitioners, the submission of a glossary may help to provide clarity as to the claimed invention, improve prosecution, and provide a clearer issued patent. For inventors, having a better idea of what is already patented will help them to innovate, and for users of technology, clearer patents can help avoid needless litigation. Finally, for our patent examiners, providing definitions of key terminology should assist them in the examination process.
I'm looking forward to your participation in this pilot program to help evaluate the impact that a glossary has on the overall quality of patents.
Posted at 02:24PM Jun 12, 2014 in patents |
More Details on Trademark Fee Reductions
Guest blog by Commissioner for Trademarks Deborah Cohn
Recently, Deputy Director Lee blogged about the status of the USPTO's operating reserves. I want to tell you more about our proposal to reduce total trademark fee collections. The reduction is possible due to efficiencies that have allowed the office to create an operating reserve. The proposed reduction maintains a reserve sufficient to manage operations and address long term investments.
The notice of proposed rulemaking was published in the Federal Register last month and the deadline for public comment is June 23. The proposal would reduce many trademark application filing fees and renewal fees by 15 to 25 percent depending on how the application is filed. We're especially pleased to be able to offer even lower fees for filing electronically, and accepting email communications from the USPTO, options that have proven to be popular with the majority of trademark filers.
The USPTO proposes to reduce the fee for an application filed using the regular TEAS application form by $50 to $275 per class if the applicant authorizes email communication and agrees to file all responses and other documents electronically during the prosecution of the application. This option will be known as a TEAS Reduced Fee ("TEAS RF") application. The USPTO also proposes to reduce by $50 the fee for a TEAS Plus application to $225 per class and reduce by $100 the fee for a TEAS renewal of a registration to $300 per class.
The proposed fee reductions will reduce processing costs and promote efficiency for the USPTO and our customers. The proposal will also further a USPTO strategic objective to increase the end-to-end electronic processing of trademark applications by offering additional electronic application processing options and promoting online filing, electronic file management, and workflow.
The proposed reductions were included in the USPTO's FY 2015 budget request. Fee reductions will be implemented in accordance with the America Invents Act (AIA) following public notice, comment, and rulemaking procedures. Our plan is to have the reduced fees become effective beginning in January 2015.
We look forward to working with our customers to offer lower cost options for filing and maintaining trademark registrations. Again, written comments must be received by June 23 to ensure consideration.
Posted at 10:09AM Jun 11, 2014 in trademarks |
An Update on Sustainable Funding for the USPTO
Blog by Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Deputy Director of the USPTO Michelle K. Lee
I'd like to take some time today to follow up a recent guest blog about our FY 2015 budget by our Chief Financial Officer, Tony Scardino. That blog gave an overview of what the USPTO anticipates collecting in fees in FY 2015, what we plan to spend, our staffing levels, and what we intend to accomplish. It also provided a link to the full congressional budget submission.
While this budget document provides great information, at 197 pages it can, admittedly, be a somewhat intimidating read. With that in mind, there is one set of numbers in particular that I think are worth noting and taking some time to discuss in the context of our new fee setting authority granted under the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (AIA).
In the "Sustainable Funding" section of the budget, you'll find charts showing our patents and trademarks "operating reserve balance" (shown on pages 15 and 17, respectively). These operating reserves are a critical part of our sustainable funding model and an important component of our first fee setting in March 2013. The reserves are intended to allow the USPTO to avoid the operational starts and stops associated with the funding uncertainties faced by a fee-funded agency, as well as plan for long-term financial stability. A great example of the importance of these reserves came at the beginning of this fiscal year, when the Congress was not able to reach a budget agreement and a lapse in appropriations resulted in a 16-day shutdown of most of the federal government. Thanks to our operating reserves, the USPTO was able to stay open and continue examining patent and trademark applications during this time.
Our target has been to build an operating reserve of a minimum of three months for our patent operations and a four- to six-month reserve for our trademark operations. We've already reached this level in our Trademark business line, and that now has us in a position to be able to propose reducing certain trademark fees in FY 2015.
As you'll see on page 15, we're projecting that our patent reserve balance will increase fairly steadily from the end of FY 2013 through FY 2019—eventually growing to $1.9 billion. While this future growth is based on a number of assumptions that could—and likely will—change, we have greater certainty about the reserve levels over the next year and a half. Based on the latest information available, we expect to be approaching a three month patent reserve balance amount by the end of the current fiscal year and will likely exceed it by the end of FY 2015.
A fair question to ask at this point—especially for those who recall the plans laid out in our 2013 fee-setting to grow the operating reserve to target levels by 2018—might be "Why is the reserve growing so quickly?" The faster than expected growth is due to several factors, including adjustments to many of the assumptions that drive our projections. For example, the economic environment and application filing growth, fee payment behavior after the fee schedule and first inventor to file implementation in March 2013, and patent production estimates have all been modified based on the information that is now available to us.
We recognize the significance of the change in our estimates and are paying close attention to the factors contributing to these changes as we gather more data to fine-tune our projections. Rest assured that the USPTO is aware of the issue and we have not forgotten the commitments we made to our stakeholders when we set our fees last year. We will soon be starting our biennial fee review, proceeding in the same transparent manner that we did in the first round of AIA fee-setting. We'll be assessing our operating environment (e.g., economy, court decisions, and fee-paying behaviors), operating costs, our fee projections, target operating reserve level, and strategic priorities (including those in the USPTO 2014-2018 Strategic Plan) and agency needs. We will be working with our stakeholder community to gather their input.
We recognize the responsibility entrusted to us under the AIA, and we are hard at work to be good stewards of the agency, its resources, and your trust.
Posted at 08:53AM Jun 09, 2014 in USPTO |
IT Modernization at the USPTO Drives Productivity and Creates New Jobs
Guest blog by Chief Information Officer John Owens
Information Technology (IT) is fueling our work in an era of escalating demand for patents and trademarks, and to face this challenge, our team is continuously looking for ways to operate more nimbly and deliver services rapidly. This year, we have been working to modernize the systems that support patent and trademark examination and fee processing by using "agile" development. Many successful technology companies use agile, an IT development method which emphasizes user involvement and ongoing feedback. (Read more about USPTO's initial rollout of agile into its processes.) By working to provide our examiners with enhanced examination tools, we are striving to improve the way that examiners work.
One new system, Patents End to End (PE2E), is already in beta use by some examiners and is targeted for a wide introduction to the examiner corps late this year. PE2E creates a more streamlined way for examiners to process patent applications, enhancing the way they view documents, search, take notes, and complete tasks. Another landmark project is Trademarks Next Generation, a faster, more feature-rich Trademarks system for both examiners and the public to use.
Systems such as PE2E and Trademarks Next Generation follow industry best practices, which include:
- Build shared IT services and tools to support global customers and maximize cost effectiveness.
- Use web-based systems with open technology standards that scale.
- Write code once and deploy everywhere for more stable, portable, and cost effective tools.
- Provide easily searchable IP information by converting all information into searchable technology formats.
As one employee said, the new tools are designed "by examiners for examiners." We are designing and testing our systems incrementally, and gathering input throughout the process; and this iterative development and constant interaction ensures that the end product has the necessary features. In addition, our expert team in the User Experience Division is ensuring that our products are always created for optimal engagement and efficiency, in order to deliver value to the public. Finally, cloud and open source technology will be used extensively so that we can concentrate on what we can't buy – a Patent and Trademark examination system.
To meet our aggressive IT goals this year, we plan to continue to hire the most qualified technical staff. Attracting the right talent is critical to our mission, and so far in fiscal year 2014, we've already hired more than 60 new staff members. We are hosting an IT Veteran Hiring Fair on our Alexandria, Virginia campus June 13th and 14th and encourage veterans with top IT skills to join the USPTO, recently voted the #1 Best Places to Work in the Federal Government®. The registration deadline is June 10, so sign up quickly. I look forward to sharing more updates with you in the future as we continue to use the latest technology to support innovation.
Posted at 11:21AM Jun 06, 2014 in USPTO |
National Day of Civic Hacking 2014
Blog by Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Deputy Director of the USPTO Michelle K. Lee
The second annual National Day of Civic Hacking will take place on May 31 - June 1, 2014, in communities around the world. This event brings together technologists, social activists, entrepreneurs and others to grow communities of innovation across the nation. As an agency that helps nurture and protect innovation, we are pleased to be joining this effort for the second year in a row.
Last year, the USPTO challenged civic hackers to use the trademark dataset and other open data sources to develop applications that identified federally registered trademarks that comprise an entity's portfolio or brand, or are used on specific products, in designated industries, or in geographical areas. Citizens answered the challenge by developing innovative applications that searched for trademarks by dominant color, "translated" words based on their relationship to concepts in the trademark data, and a trademark classifier that used machine-learning to extract key concepts and statistically important phrases.
The USPTO currently makes patent and trademark public data available in bulk form, which can be used to load into databases or other analytical tools for research and analysis and provides an application programming interface (API) for the Trademark Official Gazette. We are working to provide more APIs in the near future to enable better access to data at the USPTO.
This year, we are challenging National Day of Civic Hacking participants to use the patent and trademark datasets and other open data sources to develop innovative applications that can be used on mobile devices including smartphones and tablets. Based on feedback from our recent Crowdsourcing Prior Art roundtable, one potential area of interest is an application that would allow citizens to subscribe to alerts when applications are published that meet user specified criteria such as inventor, assignee, classification information, and/or keywords in the claims. It would be wonderful to have an application developed to achieve this.
I urge all those looking for a unique way to volunteer in your community through technology to consider participating in the National Day of Civic Hacking. You can learn more at hackforchange.org or read our specific patent challenge or trademark challenge.
Posted at 04:25PM May 27, 2014 in USPTO |
We Are Traveling Around the Country to Hear from You on Digital Copyright Issues
Guest blog by Chief Policy Officer and Director for International Affairs Shira Perlmutter
In our Green Paper on Copyright Policy, Creativity, and Innovation in the Digital Economy, the Department of Commerce's Internet Policy Task Force promised to reach out to the public for input on a number of critical digital copyright issues. In the next few months, the USPTO, along with the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), in coordination with the U.S. Copyright Office, will seek that input during four public roundtables in cities around the country. We are hosting events in Nashville, TN on May 21st, Cambridge, MA on June 25th, Los Angeles, CA on July 29th, and Berkeley, CA, on July 30th. Be sure to stop by if you happen to be in or near any of these cities! We will be webcasting the roundtables, so don't worry if you cannot make it in person.
The digital copyright policy issues identified in the Green Paper are central to our nation's economic growth, cultural development, and job creation—and these roundtables are part of efforts to address those issues. We previously held a full day conference on all of these issues in December at the USPTO, and our roundtables will now take the conversation forward on the following issues:
o The legal framework for the creation of remixes.
o The relevance and scope of the first sale doctrine in the digital age.
o The appropriate calibration of statutory damages in the context of (1) individual file sharers and (2) secondary liability for large-scale infringement.
Find more information on the roundtable topics and future agendas online. Please RSVP to participate in a roundtable near you.
Our goal is to have an interactive discussion of the issues to ensure a complete record upon which the task force can make recommendations. These roundtables will help us engage with a full range of voices across the country so that we can develop the best possible approaches. I look forward to hearing your voice among them.
Posted at 02:02PM May 13, 2014 in copyright |
Progress Continues with Our Patent Trial and Appeal Board
Blog by Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Deputy Director of the USPTO Michelle K. Lee
Transparency and public involvement in building an even better patent system are hallmarks of this administration and pervade all aspects of the USPTO. A current example of that is the ambitious outreach the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, or PTAB, is conducting with the public. The Board is in the middle of a series of eight roundtables to engage the public about our AIA trial proceedings, our continued hiring of new judges, and our redesigned PTAB web pages, which contain decisions, operating procedures, and interesting statistics to date. Several hundred engaged individuals have already attended our first few roundtables over the last two weeks, and we look forward to seeing more of you at our remaining roundtables in Dallas and Denver. If you can't make any of the remaining roundtables in person, our May 8 event in Denver will also be webcast.
At these roundtables, we're particularly focused on receiving feedback on our new trial proceedings created by the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act of 2011. The statute set the framework for these trial proceedings, and the agency promulgated rules and issued guidance thereafter. In promulgating those rules and guidance, the agency worked carefully and diligently, issuing final rules and guidance in a mere one year after the AIA became law. Those rules and guidance were implemented after the USPTO visited 18 cities to solicit input from our stakeholders, just as we are doing now. Also, when we issued the AIA final rules, we committed to re-visiting the rules and guidance after both the Board and the public operated under them for some period.
The time to revisit the rules is upon us. PTAB began conducting inter partes review and covered business method review proceedings nearly 18 months ago. During this time, the Board has received more than 1,200 petitions, issued more than 500 decisions on whether to institute a trial, and released more than 40 final written decisions following a trial. For such a short period of time, that is a lot of hands-on experience, and the Board has gained a fair amount of wisdom about these processes as a result. But we know that participants in these new AIA proceedings, as well as seasoned observers of our patent system, have also been focused on these new trials and have their own wisdom to share. Through these roundtables, we are hearing from interested parties their thoughts on what we can do to make trial proceedings even more effective going forward by adjusting the rules and guidance where necessary.
Each roundtable is staffed by at least five administrative patent judges per city (APJs). The roundtables begin with an overview of trial statistics and lessons learned followed by a mock conference call centered on motions for discovery and amendments. The overview provides a framework for the trials, while the mock conference call showcases successful techniques for winning a motion as well as missteps to avoid. The roundtables end with a panel discussion featuring APJs and local practitioners with experience and knowledge about the AIA trials. The purpose of the panel discussion is to break down the trial process and identify strengths and places for improvement. Nothing about the AIA trials is carved in stone, so the opportunity is upon us to work together to hone the AIA trials system into a true alternative to district court litigation for challenging patent validity.
Apart from the roundtables, I'm pleased to note that PTAB continues to have great success in hiring talented new judges with strong and relevant technical and legal backgrounds. We are moving fast toward our goal of adding 60 new judges for a grand total of 200 by June 1st. New judges are joining not only at the Alexandria headquarters but also at all of the satellite office locations, namely Detroit, Denver, Dallas, and Silicon Valley. As the first director of our Silicon Valley office, I was honored to work beside the stellar judges that had already joined PTAB in service to the innovation community. If you think you have what it takes to make an excellent PTAB judge, we encourage you to apply. To learn more please visit www.usajobs.gov.
Speaking of the web, PTAB has overhauled its pages on our website, making it easier to locate information about AIA trials, ex parte appeals, statistics, operating procedures, and rulings. Additionally, PTAB is posting timely articles, such as tips for filing a preliminary patent owner statement in an AIA trial and testimonials about life as a PTAB judge.
This is an exciting time for PTAB, and for this agency. We'd love to see you at one of our remaining PTAB roundtables. But, even if you're unable to attend one, I encourage you to join the Denver roundtable via webcast and share your thoughts on our progress. Together we can make the PTAB proceedings even more effective for you.
Posted at 11:03AM May 02, 2014 in patents |
Trademark Performance Update
Guest blog by Commissioner for Trademarks Deborah Cohn
The results for the second quarter of fiscal year 2014 demonstrate continued high performance by our Trademark team in meeting our strategic performance goal targets. I invite you to take a look at our updated performance, filing, and registration data that are now available on the Trademark dashboard.
The office has made great progress towards setting and achieving high quality standards. Quality results are evidence that the specialized training, online tools, and enhanced communication efforts we're using are proving effective. The results for our newest quality standard for assessing efforts that go beyond procedural and statutory correctness continue to exceed our expectations. They demonstrate 'exceptional' results preparing a first action.
First action pendency—the time from filing to the initial examination—has been consistently maintained within the target range to issue a first action between 2.5 and 3.5 months from filing. Pendency to registration continues to remain at historically low levels. Disposal pendency—the time from when an application is filed until a trademark is registered or abandoned or a notice of allowance is issued for applications that are not in use—averaged 10.2 months, under the 12-month target. These results are due in part to the progress made from greater acceptance of electronic filing and in particular use of TEAS Plus applications which now make up 40 percent of new filings and more than 36 percent of new classes. Electronic filing and communications promotes more efficient and cost effective processing now comprises 80 percent of all applications processed to disposal.
Trademark application filings continued an upward trend, increasing by more than 4 percent compared to a year ago. New applications are expected to increase by nearly 5 percent this fiscal year to 455,000 classes.
We welcome any feedback you have on how we can improve the information presented through the Trademark Dashboard. Simply email a comment to our dedicated mailbox. We look forward to hearing from you.
Posted at 09:01AM May 01, 2014 in trademarks |
World IP Day
Blog by Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Deputy Director of the USPTO Michelle K. Lee
Today I had the opportunity to discuss the importance of intellectual property during a World IP Day event at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. I want to share my remarks with you through this blog:
Thank you, Sean, and good morning, everyone! I'd also like to acknowledge Mindy Bickel, the United States Patent and Trademark Office's Innovation and Outreach Coordinator for the Greater New York Region. Working through the Department of Commerce's partnership with Cornell Tech, Mindy helps educate and empower businesses and innovators throughout the region to create jobs and new economic opportunities through intellectual property protection and other government resources. In effect, Mindy is doing some of the same work that our new satellite offices in Dallas, Denver, Detroit, and Silicon Valley are doing, but unlike them she's a one-person shop, and she's doing a great job at it. So thanks, Mindy.
I'd also like to commend the Cardozo School of Law for having one of the finest intellectual property law programs in the nation. This is especially remarkable because the school is still relatively young, having graduated its first class of lawyers in 1979. So kudos to the faculty and staff for your outstanding work, and for helping shape the future of a profession that is very near and dear to my heart. And best wishes to the students, who have exciting and rewarding careers ahead of them.
One of the challenges I've come to appreciate in my own career in IP law, and particularly as Deputy Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, is how to facilitate a better and broader public understanding of the importance of intellectual property in our daily lives. Let's face it: As engineers, scientists, academics, and lawyers, we don't always do a great job helping get the public as excited about intellectual property as we are, or in helping them see the connection between intellectual property, the products they enjoy, and the IP-related jobs created every year in our innovation economy. As recently as 2012, a Commerce Department study found that IP-intensive industries support at least 40 million jobs and contribute more than $5 trillion dollars to, or 34.8 percent of, U.S. gross domestic product (GDP). That's a huge part of our economy.
As a child of the Silicon Valley, I saw the power of innovation and intellectual property up close and personal. My parents were immigrants, drawn across the Pacific Ocean by the promise of the American Dream. My father was an engineer, and so were all of the dads on the street where I grew up. They worked for tech companies of all sizes, often founded by just one person who grew their businesses through the power of intellectual property. Many of them had the experience of creating an invention, patenting it, and using the protection that patent provided to obtain venture capital funding, hire employees, and begin producing and selling new products and services. Seeing that process as a child made an indelible impression on me, and I never had much doubt about what I wanted to do when I "grew up." But of course my childhood was shaped by intellectual property in other ways that I didn't always recognize or appreciate.
Consider the innovative work of Garrett Brown, who last year was inducted into our National Inventors Hall of Fame, a program we conduct in partnership with the non-profit Invent Now, to promote the spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship. How many of you recall the thrilling speeder-bike chase in RETURN OF THE JEDI, when Luke and Leia are zooming through the forest in pursuit of Imperial Stormtroopers, or Sylvester Stallone running up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art in the first ROCKY film? Those iconic moments in movie history and many others like them were filmed by Garrett Brown, using an invention he created called the Steadicam, which is so ubiquitous today we take it for granted.
In the old days, before Steadicam technology, camera operators were limited to using riggings, tracks, and bulky tripods and dollies, with only pans and or sweeping crane shots to give movies a sense of motion. But after Garrett's pioneering work on stabilizers, moviegoers could—for the first time—be truly immersed in the action on screen. They could feel the thrill of those high-speed chases. It's hard to imagine now what movies would be like without the Steadicam. How many millions of young imaginations have been captivated and influenced—truly transported somewhere else, in the way that only movies can do—because of Garrett's innovation, combined with a compelling story, good actors, and an experienced director?
Movies, after all, truly embody the concept of intellectual property in one of its most spectacular, memorable, and collaborative forms. Every person involved in a movie, from writers and producers to the makeup artists and camera operators like Garrett Brown, works hard to bring a work of art to the audience. And like everyone, they deserve to be paid for their work. Intellectual property rights ensure that the fruits of their labors remain valuable and marketable. But those rights aren't just about fairly compensating creators—patents, trademarks, and copyrights promote innovation and creativity by encouraging others to come up with new ideas and better ways of doing things, as Garrett Brown did. They facilitate the spread of human knowledge and fuel the inspiration for humanity's accomplishments. They help us tell new stories and find new possibilities.
For hundreds of years, intellectual property has been the driving force of progress in technology, art, and, culture. This is true around the world. It's part of our shared human experience, no matter where we come from. Which is why the intellectual property offices of the world—including the United States Patent and Trademark Office—work together to ensure that IP rights continue fostering creativity and innovation.
We are here today because April 26 is World Intellectual Property Day, a tradition that began in 2000 by proclamation of the member states of the World Intellectual Property Organization. Every year since, WIPO and its member states have celebrated World IP Day with activities, events, and campaigns to increase public understanding of what intellectual property really means, and to demonstrate how the IP system fosters not only music and the arts, but also serves as the incentive for creation of all the products and technological innovations that shape the modern world. April 26 is, as many of you know, the birthday of WIPO itself. Like the Cardozo Law School, it is still a relatively young organization. The Convention Establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) was adopted in 1967 and came into force on April 26, 1970. Thus the selection of this day for World IP Day.
Today, WIPO has 187 member states and administers 26 treaties. The most recent of those treaties was adopted last June in Marrakesh, to facilitate access to published works by visually impaired persons and persons with print disabilities. It's that kind of work that makes WIPO such an important and valuable organization. In addition to facilitating strong IP rights in multiple jurisdictions, WIPO also provides IP capacity building, training, and technical assistance on IP protection and enforcement. Through the WIPO Academy, the organization has trained thousands of officials dealing with IP worldwide, including officials from IP offices, police, prosecutors, judges, and customs officials. Through the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center, WIPO provides alternative dispute resolution services, including domain name dispute resolution. WIPO has committees dedicated to discussing patent, trademark, copyright and traditional knowledge issues. When member states agree that an issue is ripe for an international agreement a diplomatic Conference is convened to adopt a treaty or update a treaty.
In short, WIPO is a force of great good in the world of intellectual property, and while we are here today in honor of World IP Day and movies in particular, we would be remiss not to pay tribute to WIPO itself for the great work it has done, and will continue to do, on behalf of intellectual property worldwide. I want to also congratulate Director General Francis Gurry, who was recently reelected to another six-year term as the head of WIPO. The United States Patent and Trademark Office looks forward to working with Director General Gurry and his team on a number of important matters across the full spectrum of intellectual property.
In the meantime, here at home we must continue to find new and innovative ways to promote the importance of IP to the American public, and especially to our nation's children. Tapping into the "global passion for movies"—the theme of this year's World IP Day—is a great start. It's not only a powerful example of IP, but a tremendously useful means of communication as well. Last year, the USPTO, the National Science Foundation, and NBC Learn, the educational arm of NBC News, launched an 11-part "Science of Innovation" video series to coincide with the 165th birthday of American inventor Thomas Edison.
Narrated by NBC News' Ann Curry, the series featured innovators from across the country, including scientists and engineers working on projects in industries as diverse as healthcare, energy, transportation, agriculture, and more. "Science of Innovation" looked beyond the popular concept of innovation as the result of a single event or brilliant idea. Instead, it examined the processes and steps that anyone from a garage tinkerer to a federally funded scientist can take to discover new solutions to pressing problems or to add value in new ways to existing products, services, or technologies. Not only was this a clever means of reaching younger audiences, but it was also a great example of federal agencies, industry, and educators working together to demonstrate the connection between IP and the science, technology, engineering and math fields.
Was it as memorable as RETURN OF THE JEDI or ROCKY? Probably not. That's tough competition! But it was a good use of harnessing our global passion for movies to the advantage of IP and STEM education, and the kind of creative public-private partnership that we should build upon. At the end of the day we all have a role to play in educating the public about the importance of IP, and we can do that best by working together, collaboratively and creatively, with a view toward directing that global passion for movies toward a global passion for IP.
Thank you again for having me here today, and for what you as members of AIPLA, WIPO, and the public at large do to support the cause of intellectual property. I hope you enjoy the rest of the program, and that you get a chance to see a good movie this weekend!
Posted at 03:43PM Apr 25, 2014 in ip |
Inspiring the Next Generation of Inventors
Blog by Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Deputy Director of the USPTO Michelle K. Lee
What do physicist Charles Hull, chemist Richard DiMarchi, and the late silver screen star Hedy Lamarr have in common? For one, they each patented inventions that revolutionized their industries and changed people's lives. Second, they will be inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame (NIHF) on May 21st here at USPTO headquarters. But they also, at some point in their lives, were inspired to pursue new horizons in science.
Hull is considered the father of additive manufacturing, more popularly known as 3D printing. He came up with the idea while developing lamps for ultraviolet-curable resins, and now his technology is being used to create everything from aircraft components to artificial limbs. DiMarchi has improved more than a million lives with his development of the first rDNA-derived peptide approved as medicine; his Humalog® insulin is an indispensable part of the lives of many diabetes sufferers. And Lamarr? The accomplished actress once partnered with composer George Antheil to patent a "secret communication system" that reduced the danger of detection or jamming of radio-controlled torpedoes.
My path to becoming an engineer in the field of artificial intelligence did not involve the performing arts. I am a second-generation American who grew up in Silicon Valley—our nation's main hub for innovation. My father was an engineer, as were all of the other dads on our street, and I never imagined any other career path. But we need to help encourage our next generation of inventors to pursue all kinds of different fields. That's why I'm glad the USPTO manages the NIHF program, in partnership with the non-profit Invent Now. The partnership involves inspiring programs for inventive college students and curious grade schoolers, such as Invent Now's Camp Invention.
At Camp Invention, students get to play inventor for a week at a national summer program focused on creativity, innovation, and real-world problem solving. This week-long summer day camp for 1st through 6th graders includes robust STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) curriculum while also providing insights on the role of patents and trademarks in innovation. Established in 1990, the program is currently held at more than 1,200 sites in 50 states. Students learn through teamwork and subject immersion, while the certified teachers guiding the camps receive materials they can utilize in their regular school curriculum during the normal academic year. Perhaps most importantly, Invent Now puts great focus into finding teachers and schools located in economically disadvantaged communities to host Camp Invention, ensuring that children of all backgrounds can benefit.
But our partnership with Invent Now doesn't only focus on children and accomplished inventors. We also work with Invent Now on the very popular Collegiate Inventors Competition (CIC), another program in operation since 1990. NIHF inductees and USPTO subject-matter experts serve as judges of individual and team submissions from undergraduate and graduate students across the country. These inventors develop groundbreaking innovations to address vexing problems, and finalists and winners are honored here at the USPTO in a special ceremony. Last year's entries included a next-generation cancer chemotherapy patch, a mechanical leech for post-surgical treatment of tissue reattachment patients, and an upper-body exoskeleton for physical therapy and occupational lifting. Applications are now being accepted for the 2014 competition.
In short, our partnership with Invent Now supports a path of innovation, from grade school to college to the heights of a professional career. That story will be told soon in our National Inventors Hall of Fame Museum housed at our Alexandria headquarters. We are working with Invent Now to overhaul our existing museum and turn it into a true shrine to innovation and the great patent owners who have been inducted into the NIHF. A portion of that museum will be opened at our May 21st induction ceremony, where 2014 attendees will be able to see their names, innovations, and related patent numbers on permanent display. Visitors will be able to track paths of innovation, following the first childhood spark of an idea to the moment when it changed the world.
When we induct the 2014 NIHF class next month, I'm sure I won't be alone in wondering how many future inductees will be veterans of Camp Invention or the Collegiate Inventors Competition. It's really only a matter of time.
Posted at 03:10PM Apr 17, 2014 in ip |
USPTO's Office of Policy and International Affairs Continues Building Support for U.S. Innovators and Entrepreneurs
Guest blog by Chief Policy Officer and Director for International Affairs Shira Perlmutter
In the first quarter of fiscal year 2014, the Office of Policy and International Affairs (OPIA) conducted dozens of programs designed to provide intellectual property (IP) capacity-building and technical assistance to domestic and international audiences. These programs to boost IP awareness and understanding are managed through our Global Intellectual Property Academy (GIPA), and tracking them is one of the ways we measure our performance.
In the first quarter of FY14, we conducted three domestic programs that reached 360 participants. A particularly interesting program that I'd like to point out was designed to support veterans who have either started or want to start a business, and it was carried out in cooperation with the Small Business Administration and Syracuse University's Institute for Veterans and Military Families. This program, the Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans with Disabilities (EBV), has a curriculum tailored to the unique challenges and opportunities associated with being a veteran business owner. Attorneys from the GIPA also participated in EBV's third annual National Training and Alumni Conference on October 25-27 in Dallas. The attorneys guided veterans through an interactive exercise that highlighted the role IP plays in building businesses, and provided one-on-one advice throughout the conference.
Internationally, we conducted 35 programs in 41 countries that reached 1,211 foreign officials. A good example of our international outreach includes a colloquium on IP rights for approximately 30 judges, prosecutors, and investigators in Morocco. The colloquium was held November 19-22 and covered topics such as the investigation of IP crimes, the importance of cooperation with law enforcement, and adjudication of criminal IP cases.
For more information on our FY 2014 Q1 activities and OPIA's performance metrics, I invite you to visit our Policy and International Affairs dashboard.
Posted at 11:12AM Mar 28, 2014 in ip |
An Update on Our Satellite Offices
Blog by Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Deputy Director of the USPTO Michelle K. Lee
As we've done in the past, I'd like to take a moment to fill you in on the status of our satellite offices in Dallas, Denver, Detroit and Silicon Valley. Having spent the last year leading our team at the Silicon Valley office, keeping on top of all the developments related to our satellite offices is of particular interest to me. These offices are so important to inventors, entrepreneurs, and small businesses in the surrounding regions—and to our agency's core mission of fostering American innovation and competitiveness.
Our Elijah J. McCoy Satellite Office in Detroit, which opened for business in July 2012, is meeting and exceeding the needs of the agency and the local innovation community. With approximately 100 patent examiners and eight administrative patent judges, the Detroit office continues to process patent applications, as well as manage appeal cases and America Invents Act (AIA) trials.
Having an office in Detroit has also enabled us to foster new partnerships with stakeholders, the local community and organizations such as the Henry Ford Museum and the Auto Harvest Foundation. Through these partnerships, Detroit office staff are participating in numerous outreach events, including IP conferences, IP bar association meetings, elementary school science fairs, and an initiative to help the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History start a program for children to understand the correlation between science, technology, engineering, math, art, and design and the creation and protection of intellectual property. The office has also been holding quarterly "Saturday Seminars" to train independent inventors and small businesses on the importance of IP protection (If you're in the area, come to our next one on April 12).
In Silicon Valley, we're moving forward with the city of San Jose to ensure our permanent office has the perfect space to suit our needs and the needs of local stakeholders. When it comes to community engagement, we'll be doing a lot of what we do in our Detroit office, including local training programs and workshops while building partnerships with local innovators and others in the IP field. We're aiming to start operations in San Jose City Hall in the spring of 2015. USPTO senior executive John Cabeca, who took over serving as Director of the Silicon Valley Office when I left, has been leading USPTO's outreach in the region. A 25-year veteran of the agency, he is actively engaged with stakeholders across the Bay Area and doing a superb job.
Meanwhile, this Wednesday we're hosting a Livestream recruitment event with U.S. Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado as part of our search for top talent to hire for the Denver office. The event will feature a panel of USPTO supervisory and patent examiners who will talk about what their job entails, share their experiences working at the USPTO, and answer live questions. Concurrently, we're reviewing candidates for the Denver office regional director and plan to make our selection in the coming months. We are also on track to move from the Denver Federal Center to occupy permanent space in the Byron G. Rogers Federal Building this July.
In Dallas, our staff has been operating out of the Santa Fe Federal Building since March 2013. The design-and-build phase of the permanent space in the Terminal Annex Federal Building will start early this spring with a planned occupancy in fall 2015. In the meantime, the USPTO and the Dallas Entrepreneur Center are collaborating on programs and exchanges designed to educate local entrepreneurs on the effectiveness of IP protection, similar to our Detroit "Saturday Seminars."
For now, the temporary offices in Dallas, Denver, and Silicon Valley are staffed with Patent Trial and Appeal Board judges, whose main job is helping reduce the inventory of trial and appeal cases. We continue to hire judges as qualified candidates become available, and we will recruit patent examiners for each office as their permanent spaces near completion. All vacancy announcements for these offices are posted on usajobs.gov, so if you're interested—or you know someone who might be—that's where to look.
These satellite offices are critically important to the regional IP communities, and getting all of them operating at full strength is one of our major priorities as an agency. We are grateful to local government officials and regional stakeholders who have responded so enthusiastically to our satellite offices, and extend kudos to the hard-working USPTO personnel in each location. These offices would not exist without the hard work and support of many people inside and outside of our agency.
This year promises to be an exciting one for our satellite offices, and we will continue to keep you informed about major new developments.
Posted at 09:48AM Mar 25, 2014 in America Invents Act |
Our Vision for 2014-2018
Blog by Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Deputy Director of the USPTO Michelle K. Lee
I'm pleased to announce today the publication of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's 2014-2018 Strategic Plan. We appreciate the helpful feedback we received on the draft we released last year. The final product is stronger as a result.
My senior management team and I put a lot of care and thought into this plan, because we take seriously our role as a driver of creativity and economic growth in the 21st century innovation economy. For the last five years, we have worked diligently to achieve the goals of our 2010-2015 Strategic Plan, such as significantly reducing our unexamined patent application backlog and pendency; modernizing our information technology systems; implementing the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act; and securing sustainable funding. Our progress is significant and quantifiable.
Our new strategic plan raises the bar. We will continue to enhance our human resources, retaining and hiring more talented examiners while continuing to ensure that the USPTO remains one of the Best Places to Work in the Federal Government. That, in turn, will allow us to further improve the quality and transparency of our patent and trademark operations while continuing to reduce patent pendency.
Increased quality and transparency of our operations and output is necessarily coupled with continued and expanded engagement with our stakeholders and the public. We are seeing that now in our efforts to build a better patent system through our implementation of executive actions offering positive reforms. That engagement has and will come in many forms, from multiple public events to outreach through our satellite offices in Dallas, Denver, Detroit, and Silicon Valley.
We of course remain focused on ensuring a sustainable funding model to best serve our stakeholders. That means pursuing spending authority for all fee collections; establishing permanent fee-setting authority; and using private-sector business tools. This effort also will involve close engagement with all of our stakeholders.
Please take a moment to peruse the 2014-2018 Strategic Plan. We look forward to working with you to help meet—nay, surpass—the outlined goals.
Posted at 02:58PM Mar 14, 2014 in USPTO |


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John C. "Jack" Schafer, 77, of Columbus, died at 6:25 a.m. Tuesday, July 16, 2013, at Columbus Regional Hospital.
He was a 1953 graduate of Columbus High School and earned a bachelor's degree from Indiana University. Mr. Schafer was a paratrooper in the U.S. Army during the Korean Conflict era and was honorably discharged March 9, 1956.
He was an industrial engineer at Cummins Engine Company, retiring after many years of service. After retirement, Mr. Schafer was a consultant for Cummins. He was a member of St. Bartholomew Catholic Church, an avid reader and enjoyed woodworking.
The Mass of Christian Burial will be at 10 a.m. Saturday at St. Bartholomew Catholic Church with Father Clem Davis officiating. Family and friends may call from 9 a.m. until service time Saturday at the church. Inurnment will follow at Garland Brook Cemetery.
In lieu of flowers, the family asks that memorial contributions be made to the donor's choice of charities.
Online condolences may be sent to Mr. Schafer's family at www.barkesweaverglick.com.
Born in Indianapolis August 24, 1935, Mr. Schafer was the son of William J. and Helen Roth Schafer. He married Connie H. Pruitt January 26, 1957, in Columbus.
Survivors include his wife of 56 years; children, Chuck Schafer of Cincinnati, Tom (Sandy) Schafer of North Kingstown, RI, Dan Schafer of Savannah, GA, and Nancy Moore of Cincinnati; seven grandchildren; a sister, Mary (Terry) Klinger of Fort Wayne; brothers, Bill (Ruth) Schafer of St. Louis, MO, and Larry (Ellen) Schafer of Carmel; a sister-in-law, Judy Schafer of Clearwater, FL; and many nieces and nephews.
Mr. Schafer was preceded in death by his parents and a brother, Jim Schafer.
Arrangements were made by Barkes, Weaver & Glick Funeral Home.
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Publisher's description: The Alexander Street Press product Education in Video is the first online collection of streaming video developed specifically for training and developing teachers. Upon completion, the collection will contain more than 3,000 video titles totaling 1,300 hours of teaching demonstrations, lectures, documentaries, and primary-source footage of students and teachers in actual classrooms. It will give education faculty, students, and in-service teachers a single source for the best research-based professional development video resources available.
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Newspaper article The Florida Times Union
Gay Advocates Protest Marriage Amendment; Hundreds Gather in Support of Equal Rights for Same-Sex Couples
Article excerpt
Byline: PAUL PINKHAM
Corinna Rambo lost a cousin and brother-in-law to AIDS.
So when her teenage daughter's best friend called her Lake Butler home Friday, asking for a ride to Jacksonville to protest Florida's recently passed marriage amendment, Rambo didn't hesitate.
They joined more than 200 protesters who marched around Hemming Plaza on a drizzly Saturday afternoon as part of a national protest against same-sex marriage bans approved Election Day in Florida, California and Arizona.
The peaceful protest included signs with slogans such as "We Wouldn't Vote on Your Marriage" and "Separation of Church and Hate." Many of the signs were left at the entrance to City Hall when it was over.
"We are trying to reach out to people so that they will realize we are people just like they are," said Shane Denmark of Merge Jacksonville, a gay and lesbian support group. "We just want our equal rights. That's what today was about."
Florida Amendment 2, creating a constitutional amendment that defines marriage as between a man and women, was passed by 62 percent of the voters. Florida is one of 30 states with some sort of same-sex marriage ban.
Molli Motti of Jacksonville said she wasn't surprised the ban passed in Florida, but the California vote caught a lot of people off guard.
"It shouldn't even really be an issue," Motti said. "You're not supposed to mix church and state."
Nationally, most of the attention has focused on California, where the ban essentially trumps prior court rulings that approved same-sex marriages. Protests there have been heated, many directed at churches.
Jacksonville's was sedate by comparison, despite the presence of a gospel ministry in Hemming Plaza during the same time Saturday. …


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|CSG SYSTEMS, INC. Patent applications
|Patent application number
|SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR PROVIDING ACCESS TO NETWORK SERVICES - A system and method for provisioning services accessible via a broadband network. The system receives a user selection of one or more services that have been deemed to be available to the user via the network as well as user registration information. The user registration information may include billing information and a user identifier such as a login id or email address. The system then authenticates the identity of the user with an ISP and communicates the user identifier to each provider of each selected service. The registration information and information representative of any selected service is also communicated to a billing engine. In this manner, a user may access each product or service and be billed appropriately for its usage.


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Your last chance to jump to the front of the queue for the new Qantas Card
We've had so much interest in the exciting new Qantas Card and Qantas CashTM that we've decided to extend the registration of interest deadline by another week to 19 May 2013.
As announced earlier this year, the new Qantas Card will carry an innovative payment technology called Qantas CashTM. Qantas Cash will give members the opportunity to earn points when spending their own money on the card at home, online and overseas. Qantas Cash will only be activated once a member applies and is approved.
Take advantage of this final opportunity to be among the first to receive the new card when it becomes available later this year by registering your interest below before 19 May 2013.
A limited number of cards will be available in the initial months, so register now and get ready to enjoy even more rewards.
What happens next?
If you register before 19 May 2013 you will be one of the first to receive the new card when it is available*. We will send the card to the address details we have on file for you, so be sure to keep your details up to date.
More about Qantas Cash
For the first time, Australia-based members with Qantas Cash activated on their new Qantas Card will be able to hold Australian dollars and up to eight international currencies on the card. The revolutionary new card is set to deliver members' a world of new benefits and rewards at home and when travelling.
Here's just a snapshot of the features:
- Load up to nine different currencies simultaneously via BPAY ® or POLiTM
- Earn points when you make an eligible purchase in Australia and overseas
- Lock-in exchange rates before travelling
- Use the card at home or abroad, wherever MasterCard® is accepted
- Withdraw cash from 2.1 million ATMs worldwide
- Shop overseas or online in international currencies at over 35 million merchants
- Pay bills over the phone or online
- Shop faster with MasterCard PayPass TM where available
- Transfer and manage your funds online and with your mobile
- Q chip enabled for Faster, Smarter Check-in and boarding
Discover a world of new rewards with the new Qantas Card
*Subject to available stock.
Any offer of Qantas Cash™ is subject to certain regulatory requirements being satisfied. To be eligible to receive the new Qantas Card with the option of Qantas Cash™ you must be an Australia resident Qantas Frequent Flyer member over 16 years of age. Alternative cards without the payment facility are available to all other members. Other terms and conditions and fees and charges may apply. The proposed issuer of the prepaid facility is Heritage Bank Limited, subject to final agreements which will determine the remuneration and relationships of relevant parties involved with the prepaid facility. This webpage has been prepared without taking into account your objectives, financial situation or needs and you should consider the appropriateness of the information on this webpage having regard to those matters. A Product Disclosure Statement will be made available when the Qantas Cash prepaid facility is available, expected to be later this year, via qantas.com, and will also be given to applicants for the facility. A person should obtain and consider the Product Disclosure Statement before making any decisions about whether the prepaid facility is appropriate for them. MasterCard and the MasterCard Brand Mark are registered trademarks of MasterCard International Incorporated. PayPass is the trademark of MasterCard International Incorporated. Any advice in this document is provided by Qantas in its capacity as Authorised Representative of Access Prepaid Australia Pty Ltd (AFSL 386 837) (a MasterCard business). Access Prepaid Australia can be contacted at 1800 098 231. Access Prepaid Australia can be contacted at firstname.lastname@example.com.