October 12, 2000
#00-61

Uspto Receives Government Technology Leadership Award

USPTO RECEIVES GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY LEADERSHIP AWARD FOR ITS TRADEMARK ELECTRONIC APPLICATION SYSTEM

PRESS RELEASE

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has been selected for the 2000 Government Technology Leadership Award for TEAS, the agency's electronic trademark filing system. TEAS (Trademark Electronic Application System) has two components. Using e-TEAS, a customer can submit an application directly to the trademark examining operation over the Internet, paying by credit card or through an existing USPTO deposit account. Or, using PrinTEAS, the applicant can print out a completed application for mailing to the USPTO, paying by check, money order or through a deposit account. The TEAS site is available at the following URL: http://www.uspto.gov/teas/index.html .

Sponsored by Government Executive Magazine , the Government Technology Leadership Awards program has celebrated successful government initiatives for the last eight years. The awards have sought to encourage innovation by honoring meritorious projects and the teams responsible for them. The awards salute projects, large and small, that have directly aided the missions of their organizations by boosting efficiency and effectiveness, lowering costs, and/or improving service to the public through original uses of technology.

"The USPTO is very pleased to be selected for this award," notes Q. Todd Dickinson, Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Dickinson continues, "TEAS is being recognized as an innovative customer service tool and something that we are using as our part in reinventing government."

In the past year, TEAS has been recognized for excellence in two national competitions. In May, the TEAS program was selected as a semi-finalist in the 2000 Innovations in American Government Awards Program , a competition sponsored by The Ford Foundation, The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and The Council for Excellence in Government.

USPTO will formally be honored during the Government Technology Leadership Institute Conference, at a ceremony at the Reagan International Trade Center in late November.

USPTO, a user fee-funded agency of the United States, within the Department of Commerce, administers laws relevant to granting patents and registering trademarks. The Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office advises the Secretary of Commerce and other Federal departments and agencies on intellectual property policy matters. Over 6 million patents have been issued since the first patent in 1790 and 2.3 million trademarks have been registered since the first in 1870. Last year USPTO issued 161,000 patents and registered 104,000 trademarks.

# # #