The e-mail information will be maintained in an electronic database of the roster. To reduce occasions for spam and unwanted electronic communications, the e-mail addresses will not be published, viewable by the public on line, or otherwise made available to the public.

The Office is in the process of implementing 37 CFR § 11.11, under which each “registered practitioner must notify the OED Director of up to three e-mail addresses where he or she receives e-mail.” The Office of Enrollment and Discipline’s database is now capable of storing and associating each practitioner’s name and registration number with up to three e-mail addresses for each practitioner. By this notice, practitioners are being requested to provide up to three e-mail addresses where they can receive communications from the Office.

The collection of e-mail addresses is being implemented using a two-step process. The first step is for a practitioner to send an e-mail addressed to
PractitionerE-mailAddresses@USPTO.GOV with the following information in the following sequence in plain text: the practitioner’s last name, first name and middle name; the practitioner’s registration number; and up to three e-mail addresses for the practitioner. The first e-mail address can be up to 129 characters, the second and third addresses combined can have no more than a total of 125 characters. Semicolons should separate multiple e-mail addresses from each other. The e-mail sending the addresses must be sent from one of the three furnished addresses.

The second step is for the practitioner to send a confirmation letter addressed to Mail Stop OED, United States Patent and Trademark Office, P.O. Box 1450, Alexandria, Virginia, 22323-1450. In the confirmation letter, the practitioner confirms over his or her original, personal signature the submission of the e-mail addresses to be used for the practitioner. The confirmation letter must include the same information as in the e-mail, preferably with the e-mail addresses in the same order. Facsimiles are not acceptable. 37 CFR § 1.4(e). Letters from law firms or corporate legal departments may provide confirmation for several registered practitioners, but must be signed by each practitioner. Following receipt of the confirmation letter, the e-mail address will be copied from the received e-mail and pasted into the database. OED will inform the practitioner by e-mail of the receipt of the confirmation letter and the inclusion of the practitioner’s e-mail addresses on the roster.

Practitioners will be responsible for updating OED with each and every change of e-mail addresses. Until further notice, the e-mail addresses must be updated using the forgoing steps.

Plain text is necessary inasmuch as the e-mail addresses will be pasted from the e-mail into the database. Practitioners will be responsible for the correctness of the e-mail addresses submitted to and included in the database. Accordingly, the correctness of the each e-mail address should be checked before it is submitted. Please do not submit e-mail addresses in PDF format or anything other than plain text. Office personnel will not type e-mail address information into the database that is submitted in PDF or other formats. Submission of e-mail addresses in PDF format or other means requiring the address to be typed into a database will not be accepted.

If more than three e-mail addresses are submitted, only the first three e-mail addresses will be used. The e-mail addresses will not be disseminated to the public.

Regarding business, not e-mail, addresses, practitioners should check, and where necessary, update their business address and telephone number on the roster. Practitioners may view the information regarding them that is available on the roster at: http://des.uspto.gov/OEDCI/. Any changes to the information on the roster, must be made by submitting a change of address form that is available at: http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/dcom/olia/oed/addchangefrm.pdf. Changes of business addresses cannot be accepted by e-mail, but must use the change of address form available at http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/dcom/olia/oed/addchangefrm.pdf.

Harry I. Moatz
Director of Enrollment and Discipline

May 11, 2006