Justification for Nonmaterial/Nonsubstantive Change for 0651-0027

JUSTIFICATION FOR NONMATERIAL/NONSUBSTANTIVE CHANGE TO 0651-0027

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is submitting this change
worksheet for the revision of two forms that are included in information collection 06510027 Recording Assignments, which was previously approved by OMB on 6/27/2005.
The USPTO is removing the credit card payment information from the Patent
Recordation Form Cover Sheet (PTO-1595) and the Trademark Recordation Form
Cover Sheet (PTO-1594). Instead, customers who wish to submit an assignment
recordation request on paper and pay the associated fees by credit card will be required
to use the separate Credit Card Payment Form (PTO-2038), which is currently included
in information collection 0651-0043 Patent and Trademark Financial Transactions.
Using the separate credit card payment form will allow the customer‘s credit card
information to be excluded from the relevant patent and trademark files that may be
open to public inspection.

Change in Burden
The information collection 0651-0027 Recording Assignments is currently approved with
an estimated burden of 331,294 responses, 165,648 hours, and $23,165,071 in annual
(non-hour) costs per year. The revisions to Forms PTO-1594 and PTO-1595 will not
result in any changes to the estimated annual responses, burden hours, or annual (nonhour) costs for this collection.
The requirement to submit a separate credit card payment form (PTO-2038) when using
a credit card to pay assignment fees for paper submissions may impact the number of
annual responses for Form PTO-2038 and consequently the burden for the associated
collection 0651-0043 Patent and Trademark Financial Transactions. The potential
impact on the burden for 0651-0043 due to the revised assignment forms will be
considered during in the next renewal of that collection.
Sample copies of the proposed revised versions of Forms PTO-1594 and PTO-1595
have been attached as supplementary documents to this submission.