Patent & Trademark Office, Information Technology Contracts Office, Box 14, Washington, DC 20231

H -- INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY PRODUCT ASSURANCE SOL 52-PBPT-8-00006 DUE 052198 POC James H. Murphy, Contracting Officer, Ph: 703-305-4176, Dave Sibik, Contract Specialist, Ph: 703-305-4176 The Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) has a continuing requirement for Information Technology Product Assurance (ITPA) services for independent, objective, and expert technical advice and assistance for ongoing and future information technology initiatives. This requirement is to provide an independent and objective source for expertise in: independent testing and assessment of application and infrastructure components; quality assurance; configuration management; requirements management; year 2000 century date analyses, testing, and remediation; data management; records management; and transition management. The contractor must provide the following capabilities: independent testing and assessment, quality assurance, configuration management, requirements management, year 2000 century date analysis and testing, data management, records management, and transition management. The PTO would like to emphasize that the winning offeror of the ITPA requirement will have a role as a close confidential advisorto the PTO. The ITPA contractor will assist the PTO in evaluating the performance and products of other contractors, thereby giving them access to proprietary information about potential competitors. The ITPA contractor will also have access to proprietary, source-selection sensitive, or otherwise restricted information. Because of the close confidential relationship required of the ITPA contractor, the PTO is concerned that this will cause other private sector firms to be reluctant in pursuing future work with the PTO, and that the release of proprietary information to the ITPA contractor would have an adverse impact on competition in future procurements for the PTO. In order to mitigate these concerns, the PTO intends to impose strong Conflict of Interest (COI) restrictions on the ITPA contractor. These COI restrictions include the prohibition of the winning offeror, its parent, any of its affiliates, subsidiaries, or successors in interest, consultants, and subcontractors from participating (in any capacity) in any PTO procurements, other than those activities in direct support of the ITPA contract, throughout the duration of the ITPA contract (including options) plus an additional five years. The ITPA contractor, its parent, any of its affiliates, subsidiaries, or successors in interest, consultants, and subcontractors will be prohibited from using any proprietary information obtained in support of the ITPA contract for the duration of the ITPA contract (including options) plus an additional five years or until the information becomes part of the public domain, whichever comes latest. The ITPA contractor will be required to certify that it, its parent, any affiliates, subsidiaries, or successors in interest, consultant, and subcontractors are free from COI for the duration of the ITPA contractor. The PTO will require a minimum of 20 percent of the estimated value of the contract to be performed by small businesses. The anticipated contract type is cost-plus-fixed fee and task oriented. The annual level of effort anticipated is 100,000 -- 130,000 hours. The PTO intends to issue a contract for one year with four (4) one (1) year options to renew. The PTO estimates the contract value to be $39 million. Approximate issue date is the end of May 1998, with responses due in 30 days. Requests for solicitation packages by interested parties should be made in writing; reference RFP no. 52-PBPT-8-0006 to include name of company or individual, point of contact, address, and phone number. Interested parties may obtain copies by several methods. Official Hard Copies: To obtain a paper copy, please submit a written request to the Contracting Office, specifying your preference (Limit 1 copy). Requests may be faxed to the contracting office at 703-308-5042. Official Electronic Copies: An electronic copy of the solicitation will be available as follows: World Wide Web Access -- An electronic copy can be viewed and/or downloaded via Internet (ftp to ftp.uspto.gov) or the World Wide Web Access (http://www.uspto.gov). For purposes of bidding, it is the vendor's responsibility to ensure that they obtain and respond to an official copy of the RFP. Official copies of the documents are available in paper when requested from the Information Technology Contracts Office, either in writing or by completing the bidder's request form found in the PTO Internet Web Site. This acquisition will be conducted using streamlined measures to include some portions which will be presented orally by the offeror. Details will be contained in the solicitation package. (0077)

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