2_use_case_name: USPTO Virtual Assistant (Public-facing chatbot)
3_agency: Department of Commerce
3_abr: DOC
4_bureau: USPTO - United States Patent and Trade Office
8_topic_area: Government Services (includes Benefits and Service Delivery)
10_commercial_ai: None of the above.
11_purpose_benefits: Answers questions about Trademarks and Patents
12_outputs: Answers to Trademark and patent questions that the public has.
16_dev_stage: Operation and Maintenance
17_impact_type: Neither
18_date_initiated: 4/1/2021
19_date_acq_dev_began: 5/1/2021
20_date_implemented: 12/8/2022
22_dev_method: Developed in-house.
24_hisp_support: Yes
25_hisp_name: United States Patent and Trademark Office
26_public_service: Applying to register a trademark; applying for a patent
27_public_info: Yes
28_iqa_compliance: The system has been screened by the Cyber security for compliance. It has acquired the Authority to operate (ATO) in 2023.
29_contains_pii: No
30_saop_review: Yes
31_data_catalog: Other
31_question_type: All data dissiminated in the system is approved by Trademark or Patent law offices.
33_agency_data: The model for Chatbot Virtual Assistant is trained on data pertaining to Trademark or Patent information that is publicly available on Trademark and Patent web pages.
34_data_docs: Documentation is complete: Documentation exists regarding the maintenance, composition, quality, and intended use of the training and evaluation data, as well as any statistical bias across model features and protected groups. 
35_demo_features: Other
35_question_type: Does not use any demographic variables.
37_custom_code: Yes
38_code_access: Yes – agency has access to source code, but it is not public.
39_code_link: RASA 3.1, BERT
40_has_ato: Yes
41_system_name: Chatbot-C
42_dev_tools_wait: Less than 6 months
43_infra_provisioned: Yes
45_compute_request: Yes
47_timely_resources: Yes
49_existing_reuse: Use of existing data platforms: This use case is being developed on existing enterprise data and analytics platforms within the agency rather than procuring additional platforms or SaaS to operate.
50_internal_review: Documentation has been published: Complete documentation has been published to a repository or data catalog within the agency and is made accessible to other data science teams for review and feedback.
51_extension_request: No – Agency did not request an extension for this use case.
52_impact_assessment: Yes
53_real_world_testing: Performance evaluation in operational environment: The AI use case has been tested in an operational environment before being fully implemented as a solution, or has been tested in simulated or controlled environment using operational or synthetic data.
54_key_risks: Minimal risks were identified for Chatbot Virtual Assistant as the data that is dissiminated to the users are from preapproved dataset. Chatbot cannot answer questions outside of what it is trained on.
55_independent_eval: Yes – by the CAIO
56_monitor_postdeploy: Intermittent and Manually Updated: A plan for monitoring the AI use case is in place, and requires data science teams to work with DevOps engineers to manually update models at scheduled intervals, and create metrics to detect data distribution shifts between the operational environment and the training data for the model. 
57_autonomous_impact: No - Some individual decisions or actions require direct human oversight.
59_ai_notice: Online - in the terms or instructions for the service.
61_adverse_impact: No
62_disparity_mitigation: The greeting message clearly states not to use PII or demographic information  
63_stakeholder_consult: General solicitations of comments from the public
65_appeal_process: No – it is not operationally practical to offer this.
66_no_appeal_reason: This does not apply to the Chatbot Virtual Assitant use case as all the outcomes of this system is predefined and approved.
67_opt_out: Yes
67_question_type: The users can opt to speak to human operated help desk.