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

B -- CONSULTING SERVICES TO PROVIDE ANNALYSIS AND ASSESSMENT OF PTO'S SOL 52-PAPT-7-00045 DUE 092397 POC Joan Hanicak, 703-305-8069 This is a combined synopsis/solicitation for commercial items prepared in accordance with the format in FAR Subpart 12.6, the test program in FAR Subpart 13.6,, and FAR Part 15, as supplemented by the additional information stated below. This announcement constitutes the RFP and is the only solicitation that will be issued. Proposals are requested pursuant to this announcement. All responses shall reference Solicitation No. 52-PAPT-7-00045. This solicitation incorporates all of the applicable provisions and clauses in effect through FAC 90-46, as if stated in full text, as well as the terms and conditions of FAR 52.212-1. This is a competitive procurement which has been designated as a small business set-aside utilizing SIC Code 8742. A firm fixed price contract will be awarded as a result of this solicitation to perform and complete the tasks described herein. The total period of performance will not exceed twelve months, and the estimated effort to be completed should not exceed a total of approximately 2,040 hours. The item to be procured is as follows: Item 0001: Consulting Services to Provide Analysis and Assessment of PTO's "Wire the World"/Coordination of Electronic Workplace Initiatives with Global Intellectual Property Initiatives -- $__ __ __ ___. Objective: The Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) requires expert assistance to independently assess how well the Office is coordinating its efforts to develop a future PTO electronic workplace and to integrate that workplace in a global intellectual property office network that is being designed to enable cooperation and data exchange with foreign intellectual property offices. The contractor shall review existing plans to (1) develop and deploy electronic filing and electronic workflow to support the Patent, Trademark and Information Dissemination Business Areas; (2) establish a digital library of its intellectual property records that can be accessed through a secure extranet by the Trilateral Offices which are the European Patent Office (EPO), Japanese Patent Office (JPO), and World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) as well as other industrial property offices; and (3) automate Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) operations which enable electronic filing of PCT applications in the United States. After completing the review: the contractor shall perform an analysis of the degree to which the goals, technology, legal, and regulatory issues among these projects have been coordinated; and deliver a written report with recommendations identifying areas for improvement. The contractor shall also independently assess where and how well these projects fit on a path (roadmap) leading from the present paper-intensive workplace to an electronic workplace that is connected to the global information infrastructure. Background: The "electronic workplace" will replace PTO's paper-based workplace in the future. The electronic workplace concept envisions electronic submission of requestsfor PTO's services, processing of the requests within PTO in electronic form, and delivery of PTO products and services in electronic form to the degree demanded by the marketplace. As an example, for patent and trademark application processing, there would be electronic filing of patent applications as digital documents that are controlled within PTO by a document management system and where examination tasks are managed by an electronic workflow system. The end products, published patents and trademarks, will be sold and delivered in electronic form in addition to the traditional paper copy. The PTO provides these services for both national patent and trademark applications and in support of international applications under the PCT system. To complement its efforts to establish an electronic workplace domestically, the PTO has pursued international initiatives whose objectives are to facilitate international cooperation and information exchange. Such initiatives are principally focused on activities under the jurisdiction of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and the Trilateral Cooperation program (i.e., involving the JPO and EPO). International initiatives are managed by the Office of Legislative and International Affairs (OLIA) but involve other PTO cost centers, including the Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) and Patents. Recent efforts on the international front have been focused on establishment of a worldwide network to link intellectual property offices and a variety of projects oriented at coordination of electronic filing and records management efforts among different intellectual property offices. The global network initiative was initiated as one way of refocusing WIPO's programs to make better use of information technologies within its operations and to promote wider acceptance and better coordination of systems based on such technologies. In order to promote acceptance of its initiative within WIPO, the PTO has developed and demonstrated to other Intellectual Property (IP) offices a prototype electronic filing system for PCT and US national applications. This prototype, like those developed by the OCIO under the Distributed Object Computing Testbed (DOCT) initiative for trademarks and patents, is designed to test concepts and technical solutions that may prove useful in PTO managed electronic filing systems. Another use for the global network is to connect the WIPO International Bureau (IB) with digital libraries of patent documents maintained by each of the major IP offices. The digital libraries and global network would allow the IB to retrieve electronic copies of priority documents as needed (Trilateral Project 20.1 is studying the digital library). Statement of Work: Task 1 -- Assuming that PTO's efforts to establish a global IP office network through WIPO will provide benefits in the short and long term for the PTO, the contractor shall assess PTO's efforts to coordinate its implementation of an electronic workplace with its planned participation in theglobal WIPO network. The list of elements to be considered in this assessment include, but may not be limited to, the following: benefits to be gained (or risks incurred) through coordination of domestic implementation of an electronic workplace with international initiatives risks associated with (or benefits from) not coordinating these initiatives identification of specific areas or projects suitable for coordination (or not needing coordination) definition of the specific coordination improvement needs (if any) in each of the identified areas. The contractor shall deliver a written report (Deliverable 1 below) documenting the findings. Task 2 -- The contractor shall assess how well current efforts to coordinate the OCIO and OLIA activities are covering coordination areas and needs identified in Task 1. Provide specific recommendations for how OCIO and OLIA can improve coordination. Make an assessment of how and where these projects fit on a path (roadmap) describing how to get from the presentpaper-intensive workplace to an electronic workplace that is connected to the global information infrastructure. Deliver a written report (Deliverable 2 below) documenting these assessments and the recommendations. Deliverables: (1) Global Network -- Electronic Workplace Coordination Needs Report, delivered at the end of Task 1, 90 days after award of contract. (2) Recommendations for Global Network -- Electronic Workplace Coordination, delivery date to be determined. Evaluation: The Government will award a contract resulting from this solicitation to the responsible offeror whose offer conforming to the solicitation will be the most advantageous and represents the best value to the Government, price and other factors considered. The following factors will be used to evaluate offers: (A) Past Performance; (B) Technical Capability; and (C) Cost/Price. Factors A is more important than Factor B, and together Factors A and B are substantially more important than C. Past Performance will be evaluatedas follows: Evaluation of past performance shall be based on information obtained from the contacts/references provided by the offeror, as well as any other information the Government may have or obtain from other sources. Evaluation of Technical Capability will be based on the resumes and experience of the individuals specified to perform the services, as well as the offeror's understanding of the work to be performed. Additionally, technical capability will also include an evaluation of the offeror's recommended technical approach. Instructions/Notice of Offerors: The Government will furnish or make available to the contractor any documentation or data deemed necessary to perform the required effort. Offerors are requested to submit one (1) signed and dated original and four (4) copies of the proposal. The proposal shall be brief and concise but shall demonstrate the technical capability and understanding to perform the effort described herein as well as the required experience to accomplish the services required. The offeror shall also provide a brief explanation of the technical approach they would recommend for the accomplishment of the tasks described herein. Offerors shall include pricing information that reflects the proposed labor mix and hourly rates for each individual proposed as well as complete resumes and qualifications for each. The offeror shall identify two Federal, state or local government or private contracts under which the offeror has performed work similar to the statement of work contained herein. Past performance references should be current contracts or completed within the last three years. The offeror shall provide a point of contact, current telephone number and a fax number for each reference. These references must be submitted with the offeror's proposal on the due date stated herein. Proposals shall also include a completed copy of the provision at 52.212-3 "Offeror Representation and Certifications Commercial Items". A copy of these representations and certifications may be obtained by contacting the person specified below. The contract award will include the clauses cited at FAR 52.212-4 "Contract Terms and Conditions -- Commercial Items" and 52.212-5 "Contract Terms and Conditions Required to Implement Statutes or Executive Orders -- Commercial Items". The terms and conditions of clauses 52.219-14 "Limitation of Subcontracting" and 52.219-6 Notice of Total Small Business Set Aside" shall apply to this solicitation. Proposals shall be delivered to the Patent and Trademark Office, Office of Procurement, 2011 Crystal Drive, CPK 1, Suite 810, Arlington, VA 22202, Attention: Ms. Joan Hanicak, no later than 2:00 PM (EST) on September 23, 1997. The point of contract for information regarding this solicitation is Joan Hanicak at 703-305-8069. (0256)

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