Submission for OMB Review; Comment Request

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) will submit to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for clearance the following proposal for collection of information under the provisions of the Paperwork Reduction Act (44 U.S.C. chapter 35).

Agency: United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

Title: Representative and Address Provisions.

Form Number(s): PTO/SB/80/81/81A/81B/81C/83/84, PTO/SB/122/123/123A/123B/124/125, and PTO-2248.

Agency Approval Number: 0651-0035.

Type of Request: Revision of a currently approved collection.

Burden: 33,867 hours annually.

Number of Respondents: 592,315 responses per year.

Avg. Hours Per Response: The USPTO estimates that it will take the public approximately 3 minutes (0.05 hours) to 1.5 hours to submit the information in this collection, including the time to gather the necessary information, prepare the appropriate form or document, and submit the completed request to the USPTO.

Needs and Uses: Under 35 U.S.C. 2 and 37 CFR 1.31-1.36, the public uses this information collection to grant or revoke power of attorney, to withdraw as attorney or agent of record, to authorize a practitioner to act in a representative capacity, to change a correspondence address, to request a Customer Number, and to change the data associated with a Customer Number. The USPTO's Customer Number practice permits authorized individuals to change the correspondence address or representatives of record for a number of applications, patents, or reexamination proceedings with one change request instead of filing separate requests for each application, patent, or reexamination proceeding. The USPTO uses the information in this collection to determine who is authorized to take action in an application, patent, or reexamination proceeding and where to send correspondence regarding an application, patent, or reexamination proceeding.

Affected Public: Individuals or households; businesses or other for-profits; and not-for-profit institutions.

Frequency: On occasion.

Respondent's Obligation: Required to obtain or retain benefits.

OMB Desk Officer: Nicholas A. Fraser, e-mail: Nicholas_A._Fraser@omb.eop.gov.

Once submitted, the request will be publicly available in electronic format through the Information Collection Review page at http://www.reginfo.gov.

Paper copies can be obtained by:

• E-mail: InformationCollection@uspto.gov. Include “0651-0035 copy request” in the subject line of the message.
• Mail: Susan K. Fawcett, Records Officer, Office of the Chief Information Officer, United States Patent and Trademark Office, P.O. Box 1450, Alexandria, VA 22313-1450.

Written comments and recommendations for the proposed information collection should be sent on or before October 24, 2011 to Nicholas A. Fraser, OMB Desk Officer, via e-mail to Nicholas_A._Fraser@omb.eop.gov, or by fax to 202-395-5167, marked to the attention of Nicholas A. Fraser.