Federal Register / Vol. 80, No. 16 / Monday, January 26, 2015 / Notices 3953 

Council address: Pacific Council, 

7700 NE Ambassador Place, Suite 101, 

Portland, OR 97220–1384. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 

Brett Wiedoff, Staff Officer; telephone: 

(503) 820–2424. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The 

primary purpose of the webinar is to 

develop a reasonable range of 

alternatives for the vessel movement 

monitoring (VMM) agenda item 

scheduled for the Pacific Council’s 

April 2015 meeting in Rohnert Park, CA. 

The EC will discuss options to monitor 

the movement of fishing vessels in the 

commercial groundfish fishery. The EC 

will also discuss options for fishpot gear 

deployment, derelict gear removal 

options, and fishery declaration 

enhancements. Other pertinent items 

that are on the Pacific Council’s agenda 

for the March 2015 meeting in 

Vancouver, WA may be addressed if 

time allows. Actions will be restricted to 

those issues specifically listed in this 

notice and any issues arising after 

publication of this notice that require 

emergency action under Section 305(c) 

of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery 

Conservation and Management Act, 

provided the public has been notified of 

the EC’s intent to take final action to 

address the emergency. Public comment 

may be accommodated if time allows, at 

the discretion of the EC Chair. 

Special Accommodations 

The listening station at the Pacific 

Council office is physically accessible to 

people with disabilities. Requests for 

sign language interpretation or other 

auxiliary aids should be directed to Mr. 

Kris Kleinschmidt, at (503) 820–2280, at 

least 5 days prior to the meeting date. 

Dated: January 21, 2015. 

Tracey L. Thompson, 

Acting Deputy Director, Office of Sustainable 

Fisheries, National Marine Fisheries Service. 

[FR Doc. 2015–01261 Filed 1–23–15; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 3510–22–P 

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE 

National Oceanic and Atmospheric 

Administration 

RIN 0648–XD736 

Pacific Fishery Management Council; 

Public Meeting 

AGENCY: National Marine Fisheries 

Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and 

Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), 

Commerce. 

ACTION: Notice; public meeting. 

SUMMARY: The Pacific Fishery 

Management Council’s (Pacific Council) 

ad hoc Ecosystem Work Group (EWG) 

will hold a webinar, which is open to 

the public. 

DATES: The EWG will hold the webinar 

on Wednesday, February, 11, 2015, from 

1 p.m. until business for the day is 

complete. 

ADDRESSES: To attend the webinar, visit 

http://www.gotomeeting.com/online/

webinar/join-webinar. Enter the webinar 

ID, which is 103–198–035, and your 

name and email address (required). 

Once you have joined the webinar, 

choose either your computer’s audio or 

select ‘‘Use Telephone.’’ If you do not 

select ‘‘Use Telephone’’ you will be 

connected to audio using your 

computer’s microphone and speakers 

(VolP). It is recommended that you use 

a computer headset, as GoToMeeting 

allows you to listen to the meeting using 

your computer headset and speakers. If 

you do not have a headset and speakers, 

you may use your telephone for the 

audio portion of the meeting by dialing 

this TOLL number 1–480–297–0021 (not 

a toll-free number); phone audio access 

code 932–675–759; audio phone pin 

shown after joining the webinar. System 

Requirements for PC-based attendees: 

Required: Windows® 7, Vista, or XP; for 

Mac®-based attendees: Required: Mac 

OS® X 10.5 or newer; and for mobile 

attendees: iPhone®, iPad®, AndroidTM

phone or Android tablet (See the 

GoToMeeting Webinar Apps). You may 

send an email to Mr. Kris Kleinschmidt 

or contact him at 503–820–2425 for 

technical assistance. A listening station 

will also be provided at the Pacific 

Council office. 

Council address: Pacific Council, 

7700 NE Ambassador Place, Suite 101, 

Portland, OR 97220–1384. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Mr. 

Mike Burner, Pacific Council; 

telephone: (503) 820–2414. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The EWG 

will discuss agenda items in preparation 

for the Council’s March 2015 meeting in 

Vancouver, WA. The primary focus will 

be on Fishery Ecosystem Plan (FEP) 

Initiative 1: Protecting Unfished and 

Unmanaged Forage Fish Species. Other 

topics may include the review of FEP 

initiatives, the Annual State of the 

California Current Ecosystem Report, 

and one or more of the Council’s 

scheduled Administrative Matters. 

Public comments during the webinar 

will be received from attendees at the 

discretion of the EWG Chair. 

Although non-emergency issues not 

contained in the meeting agenda may be 

discussed, those issues may not be the 

subject of formal action during this 

meeting. Action will be restricted to 

those issues specifically listed in this 

document and any issues arising after 

publication of this document that 

require emergency action under section 

305(c) of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery 

Conservation and Management Act, 

provided the public has been notified of 

the intent to take final action to address 

the emergency. 

Special Accommodations 

The meeting is physically accessible 

to people with disabilities. Requests for 

sign language interpretation or other 

auxiliary aids should be directed to Mr. 

Kris Kleinschmidt at (503) 820–2425 at 

least 5 days prior to the meeting date. 

Dated: January 21, 2015. 

Tracey L. Thompson, 

Acting Deputy Director, Office of Sustainable 

Fisheries, National Marine Fisheries Service. 

[FR Doc. 2015–01260 Filed 1–23–15; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 3510–22–P 

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE 

Patent and Trademark Office 

[Docket No. PTO–C–2014–0066] 

Notice of Roundtable and Request for 

Comments on Domestic and 

International Issues Related to 

Privileged Communications Between 

Patent Practitioners and Their Clients 

AGENCY: United States Patent and 

Trademark Office, Commerce. 

ACTION: Notice of roundtable and 

request for written comments. 

SUMMARY: The United States Patent and 

Trademark Office (USPTO) is seeking 

input on issues regarding protections 

from disclosure for communications 

between patent applicants and Their 

advisors. The issues include: Whether 

and to what extent U.S. courts should 

recognize privilege for communications 

between foreign patent practitioners and 

their clients; the extent to which 

communications between U.S. patent 

applicants and their non-attorney U.S. 

patent agents should be privileged in 

U.S. courts; and whether and to what 

extent communications between U.S. 

patent practitioners and their clients 

should receive privilege in foreign 

jurisdictions. The USPTO is hosting a 

roundtable and soliciting written 

comments to gather information and 

views on these questions. 

DATES: The roundtable will be held on 

Wednesday, February 18, 2015. The 

roundtable will begin at 10:00 a.m. and 

end at 12:30 p.m. Written comments are 

due by Wednesday, February 25, 2015, 

for full consideration. 

ADDRESSES: The roundtable will be held 

at the United States Patent and 


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3954 Federal Register / Vol. 80, No. 16 / Monday, January 26, 2015 / Notices 

Trademark Office, Madison Auditorium, 

Madison Building, 600 Dulany Street, 

Alexandria, Virginia 22314. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For 

further information regarding the 

roundtable or written comments, please 

contact Soma Saha or Edward Elliott at 

the Office of Policy and International 

Affairs, by telephone at (571) 272–9300, 

by email at ACPrivilege@uspto.gov, or 

by postal mail addressed to: Mail Stop 

OPIA, United States Patent and 

Trademark Office, P.O. Box 1450, 

Alexandria, Virginia 22313–1450, 

ATTN: Soma Saha or Edward Elliott. 

Please direct all media inquiries to the 

Office of the Chief Communications 

Officer, USPTO, at (571) 272–8400. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

1. Background 

Innovators who seek patent protection 

in multiple jurisdictions may engage 

patent practitioners (attorneys or other 

registered representatives) in each of 

those jurisdictions. Currently, there is 

little consistency in whether the 

innovators’ communications with their 

patent practitioners will be recognized 

as privileged by courts. The rules 

governing privilege vary from country to 

country and between U.S. jurisdictions. 

As a result, innovators may be reluctant 

to share critical information with their 

patent practitioners because the 

information may be subject to disclosure 

in judicial proceedings. 

In addition, privilege issues also affect 

practitioners in the United States. U.S. 

district courts have inconsistent rules 

regarding the availability and scope of 

privilege for communications between 

clients and their non-attorney U.S. 

patent agents. 

The USPTO is interested in the 

following topics that focus on three 

different aspects of privileged 

communications affecting U.S. entities. 

First, the USPTO is interested in the 

state of U.S. law with respect to 

protecting communications between 

patent applicants and their non-U.S. 

patent practitioners from disclosure in 

U.S. litigation. The law in the United 

States differs from jurisdiction to 

jurisdiction. Some U.S. courts do not 

protect communications with foreign 

practitioners under any circumstances. 

Other courts may protect those 

communications, but they employ a 

variety of tests to decide whether and to 

what extent to grant privilege. Factors 

that U.S. courts consider include: 

Whether the foreign practitioner acted 

under the direction of a U.S. attorney; 

whether the foreign practitioner would 

receive privilege under the laws of the 

country where the patent application 

was filed; and how the competing 

interests of all involved jurisdictions are 

affected. The patchwork of rules 

between circuits and districts can make 

it unclear under which circumstances 

communications are privileged. 

Second, the USPTO is interested in 

how foreign courts treat 

communications between U.S. patent 

agents or attorneys and their clients. 

Problems arise most frequently in 

common law jurisdictions, some of 

which do not extend privilege to 

communications between a patent 

applicant and foreign patent 

practitioners. For this reason, Australia 

and New Zealand, both common law 

countries, recently passed laws 

extending privilege to foreign patent 

practitioners who are authorized to 

provide patent advice in other 

countries. Civil law jurisdictions 

generally impose professional secrecy 

obligations that function similarly to 

privilege, but secrecy issues appear to 

arise less frequently in practice. 

Finally, the USPTO is interested in 

the extent and nature of protection, if 

any, that U.S. courts accord to 

communications between clients and 

their non-attorney U.S. patent agents. In 

the United States, patent practitioners 

(whether agents or attorneys) must be 

registered to practice before the USPTO, 

e.g., to prosecute patent applications as 

an applicant’s representative. In order to 

register, both types of practitioners must 

demonstrate certain legal, scientific, and 

technical qualifications and pass a 

registration exam. However, patent 

agents, unlike patent attorneys, are not 

required to be separately licensed to 

practice law. Communications between 

U.S. patent agents and their clients are 

treated differently by various U.S. 

district courts, which follow their own 

precedents with respect to whether the 

communications are privileged. Some 

district courts have denied privilege 

altogether for patent agents, while other 

courts have granted privilege to agents 

only when their work is overseen by an 

attorney. Still others have recognized 

privilege only for communications with 

an agent regarding activities before the 

USPTO, or only when the 

communications concern a related 

adversarial process. 

To address the lack of uniformity for 

potentially privileged communications 

discussed above, the possibility of 

developing an international minimum 

standard for recognizing privileged 

communications between clients and 

patent practitioners has been considered 

in recent years by the Standing 

Committee on the Law of Patents (SCP) 

at the World Intellectual Property 

Organization (WIPO). Those discussions 

have resulted in a compilation of 

relevant laws in WIPO member 

countries on this issue. For more 

information, please see WIPO document 

SCP/20/9, ‘‘Confidentiality of 

Communications between Clients and 

their Patent Advisors: Compilation of 

Laws, Practices and other Information,’’ 

available at: http://www.wipo.int/edocs/ 

mdocs/patent_policy/en/scp_20/scp_

20_9.pdf. This document also contains a 

summary of U.S. law on this issue. 

Separately, several industry 

organizations from the United States 

and Europe have proposed an 

international framework that they 

believe would help mitigate some of the 

uncertainty that exists in the current 

system. A copy of their proposed 

framework can be found at: https:// 

www.aippi.org/download/ 

onlinePublications/Attachment1

SubmissiontoWIPODecember182013_

SCP.pdf. 

The USPTO is conducting this public 

roundtable to solicit comments from 

interested parties on protecting 

confidential communications between 

innovators and their patent practitioner 

representatives. The number of 

participants in the roundtable is limited 

to ensure that all speakers have a 

meaningful opportunity to present their 

views. Those who wish to participate in 

the roundtable should submit a written 

request, per the instructions below. 

Members of the public who wish to 

attend and observe the roundtable need 

not submit a request. 

Anyone may submit written 

comments for consideration by the 

USPTO on issues relevant to this notice 

or raised at the roundtable. The USPTO 

plans to make the roundtable available 

via webcast. Webcast information will 

be available on the USPTO’s Web site 

before the roundtable. The written 

comments and list of the roundtable 

participants and their associations will 

be available from the USPTO’s Web site. 

2. Issues for Public Comment 

The topics and questions listed below 

reflect particular issues for which the 

USPTO would appreciate receiving 

input from interested stakeholders. 

Responses are not restricted to these 

topics; comments may provide any 

information the submitter wishes the 

USPTO to consider. The questions 

should not be taken as an indication 

that the USPTO has taken a position or 

is predisposed to any particular views. 

1. Please explain the impact, if any, 

resulting from inconsistent treatment of 

privilege rules among U.S. federal 

courts. In your answer, please identify 

if the impact is on communications with 


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Federal Register / Vol. 80, No. 16 / Monday, January 26, 2015 / Notices 3955 

foreign, domestic, or both types of 

patent practitioners. 

2. Please explain how U.S. 

stakeholders would be impacted by a 

national standard for U.S. courts to 

recognize privilege for communications 

with U.S. patent agents, including 

potential benefits and costs. If you 

believe such a standard would be 

beneficial, please explain what the 

scope of a national standard should 

cover. 

3. Please explain how U.S. 

stakeholders would be impacted by a 

national standard for U.S. courts to 

recognize privilege for communications 

with foreign patent practitioners, 

including potential benefits and costs. If 

you believe such a standard would be 

beneficial, please explain what the 

scope of a standard should cover. 

4. Please explain how U.S. 

stakeholders would be impacted by an 

international framework establishing 

minimum privilege standards in the 

courts of member countries for 

communications with patent 

practitioners in other jurisdictions, 

including potential benefits and costs. If 

you believe such a framework would be 

beneficial, please also address the 

following issues: 

a. Please identify which jurisdictions 

have potential problems and explain the 

exact nature of the problem in each of 

those jurisdictions. 

b. Please explain what the scope of an 

international framework for privilege 

standards should cover. An example of 

such a framework can be found in 

Appendix 5 of the following document: 

https://www.aippi.org/download/online

Publications/Attachment1Submissionto

WIPODecember182013_SCP.pdf. 

5. If a national standard for U.S. 

courts to recognize privilege for U.S. 

patent agents or foreign practitioners 

would be beneficial, please explain how 

that standard should be established. 

a. If Federal legislation would be 

appropriate, what should such 

legislation encompass? Please consider 

whether the Federal tax preparer-client 

privilege legislation, which statutorily 

extended attorney-client privilege to 

non-lawyer practitioners (e.g., certified 

public accountants) under 26 U.S.C. 

7525(a), is an appropriate model and 

explain why or why not. Are there any 

noteworthy parallels or differences 

between Federally-registered 

accountants and Federally-registered 

patent agents in either policy or 

operation? 

Commenters are requested to include 

information identifying how their 

organization is impacted by privilege 

issues, e.g., whether they are patent 

attorneys, agents, owners, licensees, or 

any other type of entity. 

3. Instructions and Information on the 

Public Roundtable 

The roundtable will be held on 

February 18, 2015, at the United States 

Patent and Trademark Office, Madison 

Building, 600 Dulany Street, 

Alexandria, Virginia 22314. The 

roundtable will begin at 10:00 a.m. and 

end at 12:30 p.m. The final agenda and 

webcast information will be available a 

week before the roundtable on the 

USPTO’s Office of Policy and 

International Affairs Web site at http:// 

www.uspto.gov/ip/global/patents/

index.jsp. Pre-registration will be 

available from that Web page, or 

attendees may register at the door. 

The event will be divided into two 

portions. The first part will feature a 

panel providing background on 

privileged communications between 

patent practitioners and their clients. 

The second part of the event will feature 

presentations by various stakeholders 

on privileged communications and their 

respective positions on this issue. Both 

portions will explore both domestic and 

international issues relating to these 

topics. Here is a preliminary agenda: 

Time Topic 

10:00 to 10:05 a.m ............................................................................................................ Welcome and introduction. 

10:05 to 11:00 a.m ............................................................................................................ Background panel on privileged communications. 

11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m .................................................................................................... Presentations by interested stakeholders. 

Speakers: Individuals interested in 

speaking should submit their name, 

contact information (telephone number 

and email address), the organization(s) 

the person represents, if any, relevant 

biographical information, and a few 

brief comments on the topics to be 

discussed to ACPrivilege@uspto.gov by 

February 10, 2015. Selected speakers 

will be notified thereafter. 

Written Comments: Written comments 

can be submitted via the Federal 

Register’s Web site, 

www.federalregister.gov, or by email to 

ACPrivilege@uspto.gov. Comments may 

also be submitted by postal mail 

addressed to: Mail Stop OPIA, United 

States Patent and Trademark Office, 

P.O. Box 1450, Alexandria, Virginia 

22313–1450, ATTN: Edward Elliott. 

Although comments may be submitted 

by postal mail, electronic submissions 

are encouraged. The deadline for receipt 

of written comments for consideration 

by the USPTO is February 25, 2015. 

Written comments should be identified 

in the subject line of the email or postal 

mailing as ‘‘Agent-Client Privilege.’’ 

Because comments will be made 

available for public inspection, 

information that is not desired to be 

made public, such as an address or 

phone number, should not be included 

in the comments. 

Special Accomodations: The 

roundtable will be physically accessible 

to people with disabilities. Individuals 

requiring accommodation, such as sign 

language interpretation or other 

ancillary aids, should communicate 

their needs to Angel Jenkins at the 

Office of Policy and International 

Affairs, by telephone at (571) 272–9300, 

by email at angel.jenkins@uspto.gov, or 

by postal mail addressed to: Mail Stop 

OPIA, United States Patent and 

Trademark Office, P.O. Box 1450, 

Alexandria, Virginia 22313–1450, 

ATTN: Angel Jenkins, at least seven (7) 

business days prior to the roundtable. 

Dated: January 20, 2015. 

Michelle K. Lee, 

Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for 

Intellectual Property and Deputy Director of 

the United States Patent and Trademark 

Office. 

[FR Doc. 2015–01241 Filed 1–23–15; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 3510–16–P 

COMMODITY FUTURES TRADING 

COMMISSION 

Agency Information Collection 

Activities: Notice of Intent To Renew 

Collection 3038–0076, Risk 

Management Requirements for 

Derivatives Clearing Organizations 

AGENCY: Commodity Futures Trading 

Commission. 

ACTION: Notice. 

SUMMARY: The Commodity Futures 

Trading Commission (‘‘Commission’’ or 

‘‘CFTC’’) is announcing an opportunity 

for public comment on the proposed 

collection of certain information by the 


emcdonald on DSK67QTVN1PROD with NOTICES