60614 Federal Register / Vol. 69, No. 196 / Tuesday, October 12, 2004 / Notices 

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

International Trade Administration 

[C–351–829] 

Agreement Suspending the 

Countervailing Duty Investigation on 

Hot-Rolled Flat-Rolled Carbon-Quality 

Steel From Brazil; Correction to the 

Notice of Termination of Suspension 

Agreement and Notice of 

Countervailing Duty Order

AGENCY: Import Administration, 

International Trade Administration, 

Department of Commerce.

ACTION: Correction to notice of 

termination and notice of countervailing 

duty order. 

EFFECTIVE DATE: October 12, 2004.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

Sally Gannon or Jonathan Herzog, Office 

of Policy and Negotiations, Bilateral 

Agreements Unit, Import 

Administration, International Trade 

Administration, U.S. Department of 

Commerce, 14th Street and Constitution 

Avenue, NW., Washington DC 20230; 

telephone (202) 482–0162 or (202) 482–

4271, respectively. 

Background 

On September 17, 2004, the 

Department of Commerce (‘‘the 

Department’’) published in the Federal 

Register notice of the termination of the 

Agreement Suspending the 

Countervailing Duty Investigation on 

Hot-Rolled Flat-Rolled Carbon-Quality 

Steel from Brazil and notice of 

countervailing duty order. See 

Agreement Suspending the 

Countervailing Duty Investigation on 

Hot-Rolled Flat-Rolled Carbon-Quality 

Steel from Brazil; Termination of 

Suspension Agreement and Notice of 

Countervailing Duty Order, 69 FR 56040 

(September 17, 2004) (‘‘Termination 

Notice’’). In the Termination Notice, the 

Department inadvertently listed 

separate countervailing duty ad valorem

rates for Usinas Siderurgicas de Minas 

Gerais, S.A. (‘‘USIMINAS’’) and 

Companhia Siderurgic Paulista 

(‘‘COSIPA’’). See Termination Notice, 69 

FR at 56043. However, in the final 

determination of the underlying 

countervailing duty investigation, the 

Department determined USIMINAS and 

COSIPA to be affiliated under section 

771(33)(E) of the Tariff Act of 1930, as 

amended (‘‘the Act’’), and calculated a 

single countervailing duty rate for both 

companies (e.g., USIMINAS/COSIPA). 

See Final Affirmative Countervailing 

Duty Determination: Certain Hot-Rolled 

Flat-Rolled Carbon-Quality Steel 

Products From Brazil, 64 FR 38742, 

38744 & 38755 (July 19, 1999). 

Therefore, the final countervailing duty 

ad valorem rate and cash deposit rate 

for USIMINAS/COSIPA is as follows:

Manufacturer/exporter Net subsidy 

rate percent 

USIMINAS/COSIPA .................. 9.67 

This notice is published in 

accordance with sections 704(i) and 

777(i) of the Act. This order is 

published in accordance with section 

706(a) of the Act.

Dated: September 28, 2004. 

James J. Jochum, 

Assistant Secretary for Import 

Administration.

[FR Doc. E4–2565 Filed 10–8–04; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 3510–DS–P

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

Patent and Trademark Office 

Recording Assignments

ACTION: Proposed collection; comment 

request. 

SUMMARY: The United States Patent and 

Trademark Office (USPTO), as part of its 

continuing effort to reduce paperwork 

and respondent burden, invites the 

general public and other Federal 

agencies to take this opportunity to 

comment on the continuing information 

collection, as required by the Paperwork 

Reduction Act of 1995, Public Law 104–

13 (44 U.S.C. 3506(c)(2)(A)).

DATES: Written comments must be 

submitted on or before December 13, 

2004.

ADDRESSES: You may submit comments 

by any of the following methods: 

• E-mail: Susan.Brown@uspto.gov.

Include ‘‘0651–0027 comment’’ in the 

subject line of the message. 

• Fax: 703–308–7407, marked to the 

attention of Susan Brown. 

• Mail: Susan K. Brown, Records 

Officer, Office of the Chief Information 

Officer, Office of Data Architecture and 

Services, Data Administration Division, 

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, P.O. 

Box 1450, Alexandria, VA 22313–1450.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

Requests for additional information 

should be directed to Joyce R. Johnson, 

Manager, Assignment Division, Mail 

Stop 1450, U.S. Patent and Trademark 

Office, P.O. Box 1450, Alexandria, VA 

22313–1450; by telephone at (703) 308–

9706; or by e-mail at 

Joyce.Johnson@uspto.gov.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION

I. Abstract 

This collection of information is 

required by 35 U.S.C. 261 and 262 for 

patents and 15 U.S.C. 1057 and 1060 of 

the Trademark Act of 1946 for 

trademarks. These statutes permit the 

United States Patent and Trademark 

Office (USPTO) to record patent and 

trademark assignment documents, 

including transfers of properties (i.e.

patents and trademarks), liens, licenses, 

assignments of interest, security 

interests, mergers, and explanations of 

transactions or other documents that 

record the transfer of ownership of a 

particular patent or trademark property 

from one party to another. Assignments 

are recorded for applications, patents, 

and trademark registrations. 

The USPTO administers these statutes 

through 37 CFR part 3 (3.1–3.85) for 

patents and trademarks, and also 37 

CFR 2.146 and 2.171 for trademarks. 

These rules permit the public, 

corporations, other federal agencies, and 

Government-owned or Governmentcontrolled corporations to submit patent 

and trademark assignment documents 

and other documents related to title 

transfers to the USPTO to be recorded. 

In accordance with 37 CFR 3.54, the 

recording of an assignment document by 

the USPTO is an administrative action 

and not a determination of the validity 

of the document or of the effect that the 

document has on the title to an 

application, patent, or trademark. 

Once the assignment documents are 

recorded, they are available for public 

inspection. The only exceptions are 

those documents that are sealed under 

secrecy orders according to 37 CFR 3.58 

or related to unpublished patent 

applications maintained in confidence 

under 35 U.S.C. 122. The public uses 

these records to conduct ownership and 

chain-of-title searches. The public may 

view these records either at the USPTO 

or at the National Archives and Records 

Administration, depending on the date 

they were recorded. The public may 

also search patent and trademark 

assignment information online through 

the USPTO Web site at http://

www.uspto.gov.

In order to assist the public in 

submitting assignment documents for 

recording, the USPTO developed patent 

and trademark assignment cover sheets 

that capture all of the necessary data for 

accurately recording various assignment 

documents. To record an assignment, 

the respondent must submit an 

appropriate cover sheet along with the 

assignment documents to be recorded. 

The USPTO provides two paper forms 

for this purpose, the Patent Recordation 

Form Cover Sheet (PTO–1595) and the 

Federal Register / Vol. 69, No. 196 / Tuesday, October 12, 2004 / Notices 60615

Trademark Recordation Form Cover 

Sheet (PTO–1594). 

Customers may file patent assignment 

recordation requests electronically using 

the Electronic Filing System (EFS) 

software developed by the USPTO for 

secure transmission of patent 

applications and related documents 

over the internet. Customers who 

submit patent assignment recordation 

requests through EFS must complete the 

electronic transmittal forms provided 

within the electronic submission 

software. Patent assignment recordation 

requests that are prepared using the EFS 

software but are too large (over 100 

megabytes) to be submitted over the 

internet may be copied onto a 

recordable compact disc (CD) and then 

mailed to the USPTO. The costs for 

submitting oversized electronic patent 

assignment recordation requests on CD 

were noted in the previous renewal of 

this collection, and these CD 

submissions are now being listed as a 

separate information requirement for the 

current renewal. 

Customers may also submit 

assignments online by using the 

Electronic Patent Assignment System 

(EPAS) and the Electronic Trademark 

Assignment System (ETAS), which are 

available through the USPTO Web site. 

EPAS and ETAS are new systems 

developed by the USPTO that allow 

customers to fill out the required cover 

sheet information online using webbased forms and then attach the 

assignment documents to be submitted 

over the internet for recordation. These 

web-based forms for EPAS and ETAS 

submissions are being added to this 

collection. 

This collection was previously 

approved by OMB in June 2002. In 

September 2002, OMB approved a 

change worksheet that reduced the 

burden estimates due to the USPTO 

receiving fewer assignment filings than 

expected. In September 2003, OMB 

approved another change worksheet that 

further reduced the burden estimates for 

this collection due to an overall 

decrease in assignment filings, although 

the percentage of electronic filings 

increased.

II. Method of Collection 

By mail, facsimile, hand delivery, or 

electronically over the internet to the 

USPTO. 

III. Data 

OMB Number: 0651–0027. 

Form Number(s): PTO–1594 and 

PTO–1595. 

Type of Review: Revision of a 

currently approved collection. 

Affected Public: Individuals or 

households; businesses or other forprofits; not-for-profit institutions; farms; 

the Federal Government; and state, local 

or tribal governments. 

Estimated Number of Respondents:

331,294 responses per year. 

Estimated Time Per Response: The 

USPTO estimates that it will take the 

public approximately 30 minutes (0.5 

hours) to complete the Trademark 

Recordation Form Cover Sheet (PTO–

1594) and the Patent Recordation Form 

Cover Sheet (PTO–1595), to file an 

electronic patent assignment 

recordation request using EFS, to submit 

a patent assignment recordation request 

on CD, or to submit a patent or 

trademark assignment recordation 

request online using EPAS or ETAS. 

These estimates include the time to 

gather the necessary information, 

prepare the form, and submit the 

completed request. 

Estimated Total Annual Respondent 

Burden Hours: 165,648 hours per year. 

Estimated Total Annual Respondent 

Cost Burden: $30,479,232 per year. 

The USPTO expects that the 

information in this collection will be 

prepared by both attorneys and 

paralegals. The estimated rate of $184 

per hour used in this collection is an 

average of the paraprofessional rate of 

$81 per hour and the professional rate 

of $286 per hour for associate attorneys 

in private firms. Using the average rate 

of $184 per hour, the USPTO estimates 

that the respondent cost burden for 

submitting the information in this 

collection will be $30,479,232 per year.

Item Form number Estimated time 

for response 

Estimated annual responses 

Estimated annual burden 

hours 

Patent Recordation Form Cover Sheet ................................................. PTO–1595 ........ 30 minutes ........ 277,098 138,549 

Trademark Recordation Form Cover Sheet .......................................... PTO–1594 ........ 30 minutes ........ 18,908 9,454 

Electronic Patent Assignment Recordation Request (EFS) .................. None ................. 30 minutes ........ 5,651 2,826 

Patent Assignment Recordation Request (CD) ..................................... None ................. 30 minutes ........ 10 5 

Electronic Patent Assignment System (EPAS) ..................................... PTO–1595 ........ 30 minutes ........ 18,636 9,318 

Electronic Trademark Assignment System (ETAS) ............................... PTO–1594 ........ 30 minutes ........ 10,991 5,496 

Totals .............................................................................................. ........................... ........................... 331,294 165,648 

Estimated Total Annual Non-hour 

Respondent Cost Burden: $23,165,071 

per year. There are no maintenance 

costs associated with this information 

collection. However, this collection 

does have annual (non-hour) costs in 

the form of capital start-up costs, 

recordkeeping costs, filing fees, and 

postage costs. 

This collection has capital start-up 

and recordkeeping costs associated with 

submitting patent assignment 

recordation requests on CD. Electronic 

patent assignment requests that exceed 

100 megabytes cannot be transmitted to 

the USPTO over the internet and instead 

may be transferred onto a CD for 

submission. This process requires 

additional supplies, including blank 

recordable CD media, CD labels, and 

padded envelopes for shipping. The 

USPTO estimates that the cost of these 

supplies will be approximately $5 per 

CD submission. The USPTO estimates 

that it will receive approximately 10 CD 

submissions per year, for a total of $50 

in capital start-up costs for this 

collection. 

The USPTO advises customers who 

submit oversized patent assignment 

requests on CD to retain a back-up copy 

of the CD and transmittal 

documentation for their records. The 

USPTO estimates that it will take an 

additional 5 minutes for the customer to 

produce a back-up CD copy and 2 

minutes to print the transmittal 

documentation, for a total of 7 minutes 

(0.12 hours) for each CD submission. 

The USPTO estimates that it will 

receive 10 CD submissions per year, for 

a total of approximately 1 hour per year 

for producing the back-up CD copies 

and documentation. The USPTO 

expects that these back-up copies will 

be prepared by paraprofessionals with 

an estimated rate of $81 per hour, for a 

recordkeeping cost of $81 per year for 

the CD submissions. 

There are also recordkeeping costs 

associated with submitting assignment 

documents electronically over the 

internet using EFS, EPAS, and ETAS. 

The USPTO recommends that customers 

60616 Federal Register / Vol. 69, No. 196 / Tuesday, October 12, 2004 / Notices 

print and retain a copy of the 

acknowledgment receipt that appears on 

the screen after a successful submission. 

Customers will also receive an 

electronic copy of this receipt. The 

USPTO estimates that it will take 5 

seconds (0.001 hours) to print a copy of 

the acknowledgment receipt and that 

approximately 35,278 submissions per 

year will be completed via EFS, EPAS, 

and ETAS, for a total of approximately 

35 hours per year for printing this 

receipt. The USPTO expects that these 

receipts will be printed by 

paraprofessionals at an estimated rate of 

$81 per hour, for a recordkeeping cost 

of $2,835 per year for printing the 

acknowledgment receipts. Therefore, 

this collection has a total recordkeeping 

cost of $2,916.

This collection has filing fees 

associated with submitting patent and 

trademark assignment documents to be 

recorded. The filing fees for recording 

patent and trademark assignments are 

the same for both paper and electronic 

submissions. However, the filing cost 

for recording patent or trademark 

assignments varies according to the 

number of properties involved in each 

submission. The filing fee for submitting 

a trademark assignment as indicated by 

37 CFR 2.6(b)(6) is $40 for recording the 

first property in a document and $25 for 

each additional property in the same 

document. The USPTO estimates that 

the average trademark assignment filing 

has one property plus five additional 

properties, for an average filing cost of 

$165 for a trademark assignment 

submission. 

The filing fee for submitting a patent 

assignment as indicated by 37 CFR 

1.21(h) is $40 for recording each 

property in a document. The USPTO 

estimates that paper and electronic 

patent assignment filings contain an 

average of 1.5 properties per 

submission, for an average filing cost of 

$60. The USPTO also estimates that 

oversized patent assignment requests on 

CD contain an average of 100 properties 

per submission, for an average filing 

cost of $4,000. The total estimated filing 

cost for this collection is $23,056,435 

per year.

Item Form number 

Estimated

annual

responses 

Average fee 

amount 

Estimated annual 

filing costs 

Patent Recordation Form Cover Sheet .................................................... PTO–1595 ........ 277,098 $60.00 $16,625,880.00 

Trademark Recordation Form Cover Sheet ............................................. PTO–1594 ........ 18,908 165.00 3,119,820.00 

Electronic Patent Assignment Recordation request (EFS) ...................... None ................. 5,651 60.00 339,060.00 

Patent Assignment Recordation Request (CD) ........................................ None ................. 10 4,000.00 40,000.00 

Electronic Patent Assignment System (EPAS) ........................................ PTO–1595 ........ 18,636 60.00 1,118,160.00 

Electronic Trademark Assignment System (ETA) .................................... PTO–1594 ........ 10,991 165.00 1,813,515.00 

Totals ................................................................................................. ........................... 331,294 ........................ $23,056,435.00 

Customers may incur postage costs 

when submitting a patent or trademark 

assignment request to the USPTO by 

mail. The USPTO expects that some 

assignment requests will be submitted 

by fax but that approximately 215,622 of 

the 296,006 paper assignment requests 

per year will be submitted by mail. The 

USPTO estimates that the average firstclass postage cost for a mailed Patent or 

Trademark Recordation Form Cover 

Sheet submission is 49 cents. The 

USPTO further estimates that 10 patent 

assignment requests on CD will be 

mailed to the USPTO per year and that 

the average first-class postage cost for a 

mailed CD submission is $1.52. The 

total postage cost for this collection is 

$105,670 per year. 

The total non-hour respondent cost 

burden for this collection in the form of 

capital start-up costs, recordkeeping 

costs, filing fees, and postage costs is 

estimated to be $23,165,071 per year. 

IV. Request for Comments 

Comments are invited on: (a) Whether 

the proposed collection of information 

is necessary for the proper performance 

of the functions of the agency, including 

whether the information shall have 

practical utility; (b) the accuracy of the 

agency’s estimate of the burden 

(including hours and cost) of the 

proposed collection of information; (c) 

ways to enhance the quality, utility, and 

clarity of the information to be 

collected; and (d) ways to minimize the 

burden of the collection of information 

on respondents, e.g., the use of 

automated collection techniques or 

other forms of information technology. 

Comments submitted in response to 

this notice will be summarized or 

included in the request for OMB 

approval of this information collection; 

they also will become a matter of public 

record.

Dated: October 4, 2004. 

Susan K. Brown, 

Records Officer, USPTO, Office of the Chief 

Information Officer, Office of Data 

Architecture and Services, Data 

Administration Division.

[FR Doc. 04–22780 Filed 10–8–04; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 3510–16–P

COMMISSION OF FINE ARTS

Notice of Meeting 

The next meeting of the Commission 

of Fine Arts is scheduled for 21 October 

2004 at 10 a.m. in the Commission’s 

offices at the National Building 

Museum, Suite 312, Judiciary Square, 

401 F Street, NW., Washington, DC 

20001–2728. Items of discussion 

affecting the appearance of Washington, 

DC, may include buildings, parks and 

memorials. 

Draft agendas and additional 

information regarding the Commission 

are available on our Web site: http://

www.cfa.gov. Inquiries regarding the 

agenda and requests to submit written 

or oral statements should be addressed 

to Frederick J. Lindstrom, Acting 

Secretary, Commission of Fine Arts, at 

the above address or call (202) 504–

2200. Individuals requiring sign 

language interpretation for the hearing 

impaired should contact the Secretary at 

least 10 days before the meeting date.

Dated in Washington, DC, 28 September 

2004. 

Frederick J. Lindstrom, 

Acting Secretary.

[FR Doc. 04–22810 Filed 10–8–04; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 6330–01–M