U. S. Patent and Trademark Office, Office of Procurement, Box 6, Washington, DC 20231

D -- FIRST PAGE DATA BASE (FPDB) ON CD-ROM SOL 52-PAPT-7-00007 POC Douglas R. Clift, Contracting Officer, (703) 305-8399 WEB: U. S. Patent and Trademark Office, http://www.conops.doc.gov. The US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and European Patent Office (EPO) wish to disseminate first page patent information on CD-ROM. The first page patent information consists of a bibliographic summary, abstract, and the representative drawing, when available. In fulfilling this objective, the USPTO, on behalf of the two offices, will be utilizing a streamlined acquisition process described in the document entitled "Department of Commerce Acquisition Process Case for Change", available at the USPTO Internet site (see below) or http://www.conops.doc.gov. In order to successfully implement this new acquisition process, the Government seeks the cooperation of the vendor community in an effort to conduct business in an atmosphere of integrity, openness, and fairness. In place of the usual solicitation documents, the streamlined acquisition process begins with a Project Agreement which is summarized here. The complete Project Agreement will be available at the USPTO Internet site (see below). The First Page Data Base (FPDB) is an English-language collection of nearly all the world's patent literature. Documents are presented as bibliographic text, including title and abstract, and, where appropriate, the image of a representative drawing. Document selection for the FPDB is based on the patent family. Patent families result when a patent applicant submits an application for the same invention in several countries resulting in several patents based on the same priority application. The Trilateral Offices (USPTO, EPO, and the Japanese Patent Office (JPO)) have selected a single, representative member of each family with an English language abstract (or translation where necessary) to be included in the data base. Records in the FPDB are based on the internationally agreed first page format which presents a bibliographic summary, abstract, and representative drawing (where appropriate) as they would appear on the first, or cover page, of the document. Representative drawings extracted from patent image files are combined with the bibliographic text into Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) records. The document type definition (DTD) for patents (WIPO Standard ST.32) was developed jointly by the Trilateral Offices. The Trilateral Offices have also developed software for use with SGML-encoded patent data called MIMOSA for Mixed Mode Software Application. The JPO has already begun regular production of the Patent Abstracts of Japan (PAJ) on CD-ROM, the JPO portion of the FPDB, using the MIMOSA software and SGML. The back file portion of the PAJ product, covering the years 1976-1993, is arranged in 69 technology groups based on the International Patent Classification (IPC) system. The front file, beginning in 1994, is arranged numerically and is updated on a monthly basis. The EPO-US portion of the FPDB will follow the production model of PAJ, that is, the back file will be arranged by IPC grouping and the front file will be numeric and updated on a monthly basis. The USPTO seeks a contractor who will author, master, and replicate the EPO-US FPDB back file and monthly updates, ship discs to customers, and store remaining inventory for future use. The contractor will be required to produce discs using the MIMOSA software provided by the Trilateral Offices. The back file contains approximately 50 gigabytes of data. Preliminary estimates indicate that the initial order will be for 700 copies. The contractor will receive back file and monthly update tapes on 3490 cartridges. The contractor will not use the data for any other purpose nor will the contractor market or sell the resulting product. Sample data and the MIMOSA software are available upon written request for preparation of proposals. The total five-year estimated budget for the Project Agreement is approximately $1,000,000. The contract is open to all bidders, domestic and international. The complete Project Agreement and all documents mentioned therein will be posted at the USPTO's Internet site on or about December 18, 1996. All changes or updates to the Project Agreement will be posted at the USPTO's Internet site. Accordingly, potential bidders should check the USPTO's Internet site on a regular basis. The URL of the home page is http://www.uspto.gov/. On the home page, select "Acquisitions". On that page, look under "Acquisition Documents", "Solicitations", for First Page Data Base on CD-ROM. Selecting that item leads to the Project Agreement and all related documents. You can reach the First Page Data Base on CD-ROM page through "What's New" > "Current Announcements" or through "Information by Topic" > "Current Announcements" as well. Additionally, the Project Agreement may be accessed through the EPO Internet site at http://www.epo.co.at/epo/. Potential bidders are requested to submit questions concerning this project and requests for sample data and the MIMOSA software via Internet E-Mail to the attention of Douglas R. Clift at: dclift@uspto.gov. (0337)

Loren Data Corp. http://www.ld.com (SYN# 0019 19961203\D-0003.SOL)