THIS NOTICE OF INTENT IS NOT A REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS. This notice is for informational purposes only and is not to be construed as a commitment by the Government. Potential sources who believe they can provide the services listed below are invited to submit substantiating documentation in writing to the identified point of contact. Information received will be considered solely for the purposes of determining whether to conduct a competitive procurement as per this notification and the attached SOW. Oral communications are not acceptable in response to this notice. A determination by the Government to compete this proposed contract based on responses to this notice is solely at the discretion of the Government.
The office of Technology Transfer (OTT), USDA, ARS, the Forest Service (FS) and the Animal and Health Inspection Service (APHIS) intends to award on a sole source basis the services to docket, track, and report quarterly on the status of foreign patents including the payment of annuities, taxes and maintenance fees to maintain existing patents in force to Computer Packages, Inc., CPI, 414 Hungerford Dr., 3rd Floor, Rockville, MD 20850.

Vendor shall provide docketing, tracking, payment and reporting services or non domestic (foreign) applications/patents. Vendor shall maintain a current case docket to ensure the fees for annuities and taxes are paid on a timely basis. Vendor shall enter information in its docketing system from the Government furnished and publically available records to effect the payment of annuities, taxes and the maintenance fees. Vendor shall have a computerized docketing, tracking and payment database system with the capabilities to calculate and administer different country by country patent regulations in regards to payment of annuities, taxes and the maintenance fees.

Vendor shall have safeguards in place to reduce or eliminate errors, without the need of restorations. Vendor shall provide use of patent office electronic data to verify data. Vendor shall provide paperless online annuity management. Patent annuity services shall include electronic due diligence audit of patents and due diligence audits. Vendor shall provide online electronic management which allows the Government to monitor costs, and vendor shall guarantee the exchange rate.

CPI is the only vendor that has the required level of safeguards and security necessary to protect intellectual property rights. CPI is the only vendor that can pay annuities and also offer data verification, online management system, electronic cleansing of data, update of missing data in client's records with patent office data, and data audits. Additionally, CPI has current possession of the data pertaining to foreign filing applications in USDAs docket, and it is possible that it could not be possible for another vendor to accomplish these deadlines without possession of the data. It could take several months to facilitate the data transfer of the 100+ active files in USDAs foreign filing docket in order to be successful. As we have many cases, a data transfer must be done in an orderly fashion and can take several months for docketing and payment of fees, and if it is not done this way, payments can be overlooked, foreign patent rights can be lost and the Government could be liable to licensees and/or co-0wners for lost rights.

Anticipated Award Date: December 5, 2015.

Bid Protests Not Available