53670 Federal Register / Vol. 76, No. 167 / Monday, August 29, 2011 / Notices 

received by the USPTO and, for 

example, a sentence is missing on one 

page or a chemical structure is thought 

to have been changed. 

Any decision dismissing a request to 

correct the electronic record would 

provide a two-month period to file a 

request for reconsideration of the 

decision, in accordance with 37 CFR 

1.181(f). 

The USPTO would not dispose of a 

paper for which, within sufficient time 

prior to disposal of the paper, a bona 

fide request to correct the electronic 

record of the paper has been filed and 

remains outstanding at the time the 

paper would have been scheduled for 

disposal. A request would be a bona fide 

request when it specifically points out 

the error(s) in the paper and is 

accompanied by any necessary 

evidence. A general allegation that a 

paper requires correction filed without 

evidentiary support would not be a 

bona fide request. It would be 

inadequate to stay the disposal of the 

paper and would be dismissed. Once 

filed, a bona fide request to correct the 

electronic record would remain 

outstanding unless the USPTO has 

either (1) Issued a decision granting 

either the original request or a request 

for reconsideration of the original 

request, or (2) issued a final agency 

decision denying a request for 

reconsideration of the original request. 

If the USPTO adopts the one-year 

retention period proposed in this notice, 

a patent applicant, patent owner, or 

reexamination party who is considering 

filing a request to correct the electronic 

record of a paper, but who cannot 

establish that the need for correction 

was caused by the USPTO, would be 

advised to not file the request. Other 

options for relief may be available when 

it cannot be established that the need for 

correction was caused by the USPTO. 

For example, an amendment under 37 

CFR 1.57(a) may be filed to address the 

problem of an application filed with 

inadvertently omitted material when the 

application contains a claim under 37 

CFR 1.55 for priority of a prior-filed 

foreign application, or a claim under 37 

CFR 1.78 for the benefit of a prior-filed 

provisional, nonprovisional, or 

international application. See MPEP 

§ 201.17. As another example, an 

amendment may be filed to correct an 

obvious error, along with any evidence, 

such as an expert declaration, necessary 

to establish that one of ordinary skill in 

the art would recognize both the 

existence of the error and the 

appropriate correction. See MPEP 

§ 2163.07, II. 

If the USPTO adopts the one-year 

retention period proposed in this notice, 

a patent applicant, patent owner, or 

reexamination party may file a request 

to correct the electronic record of a 

paper after the one-year retention 

period, if the evidence is believed to 

establish that the need for correction 

was caused by the USPTO, and the 

initial submission date of the paper 

needs to be secured for the information 

being corrected. The USPTO likely 

would have disposed of any paper for 

which a request to correct the electronic 

record is filed after the one-year 

retention period. Therefore, the typical 

request for correction filed after the oneyear retention period would have to 

overcome the presumption that the 

electronic record of the paper in IFW or 

SCORE is accurate and correction is not 

merited. For certain instances, e.g., 

when a paper was inadvertently not 

scanned into SCORE or placed into an 

Artifact Folder, there would be a black 

and white image of the paper in IFW 

that could be used to corroborate any 

submitted evidence. 

The proposed procedure set forth in 

this notice for filing a request to correct 

the electronic record of a paper that has 

been scanned into IFW or SCORE would 

not be a replacement for the USPTO’s 

established procedure for responding to 

a notice (e.g., a ‘‘Notice of Omitted 

Item(s) in a Nonprovisional 

Application’’) from the Office of Patent 

Application Processing (OPAP) 

indicating that the application papers 

have been accorded a filing date, but are 

lacking some page(s) of the specification 

or some of the figures of drawings 

described in the specification. 

Applicants would continue to follow 

the procedure set forth at Change in 

Procedure for Handling Nonprovisional 

Applications Having Omitted Items, 

1315 Off. Gaz. Pat. Office 103 (February 

20, 2007), when responding to such a 

notice from OPAP. 

In addition, the proposed procedure 

set forth in this notice for filing a 

request to correct the electronic record 

of a paper that has been scanned into 

IFW or SCORE would be generally 

applicable only to situations in which a 

certain document, or one or more pages 

of a certain document, contains an error 

caused by the USPTO that requires 

correction. The proposed procedure set 

forth in this notice would not be a 

replacement for the USPTO’s file 

reconstruction procedures (37 CFR 

1.251 and MPEP § 508.04). Paper 

sources for the image files in IFW are 

boxed in the order that they are 

scanned, rather than by application 

number or reexamination control 

number, such that a request to correct 

requiring the retrieval of papers from 

multiple boxes could not be reasonably 

effected. 

Dated: August 17, 2011. 

David J. Kappos, 

Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual 

Property and Director of the United States 

Patent and Trademark Office. 

[FR Doc. 2011–21964 Filed 8–26–11; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 3510–16–P 

COMMODITY FUTURES TRADING 

COMMISSION 

Sunshine Act Meetings 

TIME AND DATE: 10 a.m., Friday, 

September 2, 2011. 

PLACE: 1155 21st St., NW., Washington, 

DC, 9th Floor Commission Conference 

Room. 

STATUS: Closed. 

MATTERS TO BE CONSIDERED: Surveillance 

and Enforcement Matters. In the event 

that the times or dates of these or any 

future meetings change, an 

announcement of the change, along with 

the new time and place of the meeting 

will be posted on the Commission’s 

Web site at http://www.cftc.gov. 

CONTACT PERSON FOR MORE INFORMATION: 

Sauntia S. Warfield, 202–418–5084. 

Sauntia S. Warfield, 

Assistant Secretary of the Commission. 

[FR Doc. 2011–22148 Filed 8–25–11; 4:15 pm] 

BILLING CODE 6351–01–P 

COMMODITY FUTURES TRADING 

COMMISSION 

Sunshine Act Meetings 

TIME AND DATE: 10 a.m., Friday, 

September 9, 2011. 

PLACE: 1155 21st St., NW., Washington, 

DC, 9th Floor Commission Conference 

Room. 

STATUS: Closed. 

MATTERS TO BE CONSIDERED: Surveillance 

and Enforcement Matters. In the event 

that the times or dates of these or any 

future meetings change, an 

announcement of the change, along with 

the new time and place of the meeting 

will be posted on the Commission’s 

Web site at http://www.cftc.gov. 

CONTACT PERSON FOR MORE INFORMATION: 

Sauntia S. Warfield, 202–418–5084. 

Sauntia S. Warfield, 

Assistant Secretary of the Commission. 

[FR Doc. 2011–22152 Filed 8–25–11; 4:15 pm] 

BILLING CODE 6351–01–P 


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