USPTO Electronic Business Center (EBC) Satisfaction Measurement Survey Justification v9

OMB Clearance Request
for the
USPTO Electronic Business Center (EBC) Satisfaction Measurement Survey
A. Survey Purpose
The United States Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO’s) Search and Information
Resources Administration (SIRA) is conducting this survey. SIRA is involved in the
development of e-Commerce initiatives, particularly the electronic filing and review of
patent applications at the USPTO. Currently, approximately 65% of patent applications
are being filed electronically. The USPTO plans to increase the number of patent
applications filed electronically to over 75% within the next two years. SIRA has
established the Electronic Business Center (EBC) to support the users of these eCommerce initiatives.
SIRA plans to survey EBC users, including corporate patent filers, patent attorneys and
their staff, and independent inventors to obtain feedback concerning their satisfaction
with support from the EBC, to obtain suggestions concerning how the EBC can improve
the usefulness of its current services, and to determine the design of new services that
could be provided.
This survey will enable the USPTO’s e-Commerce customers to provide feedback and
comments. The USPTO will use the information for both EBC strategic and operational
planning including design of services, allocation of resources, establishment of service
standards and performance goals, tailoring of efficient and cost-effective customer
satisfaction improvement strategies, and day-to-day management.
There are no statutes or regulations requiring the USPTO to conduct this usage and
satisfaction measurement. The USPTO will use this questionnaire to implement
Executive Order 12862 of September 11, 1993, Setting Customer Service Standards,
published in the Federal Register on September 14, 1993 (Vol. 58, No. 176). This
customer satisfaction measurement also supports various strategic plan initiatives
developed by the USPTO to fulfill customer service and performance goals in response
to the Presidential Electronic Filing Goals.
B. Survey Design
The EBC Satisfaction Measurement survey is a voluntary, electronic point of service
survey. Customers will be asked via a recorded message prior to telephone contact
with the EBC representative to participate in an online survey of their experience with
the EBC and the services provided by the EBC. If the customer requests to the
representative to take the online survey or if the customer agrees to take the survey
based on the EBC representative’s request to take the survey, the EBC representative
will send the customer an e-mail invitation with a survey request shortly after completing
the interaction. A voluntary request will be made, in the e-mail invitation, to the
customer to access the survey site via the Internet and complete the survey. If the
customer takes the survey, the customer may respond to any, all, or none of the survey

questions. At the completion of the survey the customer will need to agree to submit
their responses to the USPTO. No information will be collected by the USPTO without
the customer’s agreement. A representative of SIRA may contact the customer based
on the survey answers provided that the customer agrees within the survey to allow
further communication. The customer will have five days to answer the survey from
when they received the survey request before the opportunity expires. Once the
customer accesses the survey the first time, the customer will have three days to go
back in and finish the survey. Both of these design elements were included to provide
the best data possible.
If a customer fails to complete a survey, there will be no further communication about
the survey regarding that particular interaction. The customer will, however, remain in
the survey pool and will have a survey opportunity corresponding to each interaction
regardless of the survey response status of previous interactions.
All survey results will be confidential and reviewed only by USPTO management and
contractor support.
Survey results will be linked to information obtained and
documented by the EBC during the interaction(s) between the customer and the EBC
representative(s) that originated the survey request. Detailed data corresponding to
each survey response and customer interaction with the USPTO will be maintained.
Customers will complete the survey online through a contractor’s website. The survey
will be designed to reflect only the USPTO’s branding. The survey results and the
information obtained and documented by the EBC during its interaction(s) with the
customer will reside in a secured folder containing three files on the contractor’s
website. The survey’s web server will be contractor managed and accessible by both
the contractor and USPTO personnel. The file containing the combination of contact
and survey data may also reside elsewhere within folder(s) on the USPTO server(s).
Usernames and passwords will be needed to access this information.
The EBC Satisfaction Measurement survey will be available to all USPTO customers
calling the EBC. Customers must agree to provide an e-mail address where the survey
request can be sent. The survey contains nine questions.
C. Respondent Pool
At this time, the EBC performs approximately 10,000 separate communications per
month with customers of 60,000 over a six-month period based on the most recent
monthly volume. The entire pool of telephone communications will be used to establish
the respondent pool.
D. Sampling Method
Each customer who telephones the EBC will be made aware of the survey opportunity.
The customer will then have the option to participate.

2

E. Collection Procedures
The EBC Satisfaction Measurement survey will only be available online and can be
accessed through the URL that will be provided to users via e-mail. The e-mail
invitation will provide an introduction to the survey, explain the purpose of the survey,
and provide instructions for the survey. The instructions will explain that the USPTO is
sponsoring a voluntary survey and that all responses will remain confidential.
F. Expected Response Rate
The USPTO anticipates that 10% of those requested to take the survey will agree to do
so, for an estimated 6,000 completed surveys over a 12-month period. Since the
survey is completed electronically, the USPTO estimates that it will take approximately
six (6) minutes (0.10 hours) to complete the survey. Because these users will be
familiar with the topics, the use of e-mail, and with the use of Internet-based
applications, they should be able to answer the proposed questions with ease.
Therefore, the USPTO believes that it has minimized the burden on respondents to the
survey.
The USPTO believes that both professionals and para-professionals will respond to the
survey. Based on recent focus groups, the USPTO is calculating the burden hours and
costs using a rate that is 30% professional and 70% para-professional. The
professional hourly rate of $304 used to calculate the rate for this survey is the median
rate for associate attorneys in private firms as published in the 2005 report of the
Committee on Economics of Legal Practice of the American Intellectual Property Law
Association. The para-professional hourly rate ($90) used for this survey comes from
the 2004 National Utilization and Compensation Survey, published in October 2004 by
the National Association of Legal Assistants (NALA). The hourly rate for professionals,
calculating 30% of $304, is $91.20, while the hourly rate for the para-professionals,
calculating 70% of $90, is $63. Adding these two rates together provides the total
hourly rate of $154.20. This is a fully loaded hourly rate. This rate is used to determine
the burden hour cost to the respondents for this information collection.
Based on the estimated number of responses and the completion time for these
surveys, the USPTO estimates that a total of 600 burden hours per year will be
associated with this survey (0.10 hours X 6,000 responses = 600 hours). Multiplying
that against the hourly rate of $154.20 gives a total annual respondent cost burden of
$92,520 (600 hours X $154.20 = $92,520).
G. Follow-up Procedures Employed
Follow-up communication by the USPTO is at the option of the respondent. The main
incentive for users to respond to the survey is the fact that all responses, suggestions,
and comments will be taken into consideration by the SIRA development team in
managing and making improvements to the EBC.

3

An attempt will also be made to contact customers with unresolved questions or
problems and/or to discuss service issues based on customer response within the
surveys. Action will be taken to resolve service issues that have been identified.
H. Assurance of Confidentiality
Data collected from this survey will be confidential and will only be available to
employees and designated contractors of the USPTO.
The EBC Satisfaction Measurement survey will be completed online. Respondents will
need the URL for the survey site to enter the survey, which will be provided in an e-mail
to the respondent. The URL for the survey site that is sent to each respondent will
contain a unique embedded number. The unique embedded number will be the only
means by which the survey results and the details of the customer interaction with the
EBC that initiated the survey can be linked.
The electronic version of the survey will be in HTML format and will be hosted on the
contractor’s website. The survey, survey results, and the details of the customer
interactions with the EBC that initiated the survey will reside in three different files in a
secured folder on the contractor’s website. One file will contain contact information that
describes the interaction between customers and the EBC, including the customers’
names, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses. The second file will contain survey
results, which will be created from the customers’ responses. The third file will identify
which customers were sent an e-mail with a survey link. This information will be
accessible by both the contractor and USPTO personnel, although the file containing
both the contact and survey data may also be accessible on the USPTO’s servers.
Because a SIRA representative may contact customers to discuss their survey
responses and the surveys are being sent to customers who have interacted with the
EBC and therefore have service records in the USPTO’s call center system, the USPTO
drafted a Privacy Act System of Records Notice entitled, “Customer Call Center,
Assistance and Satisfaction Survey Records” which was published in the Federal
Register on August 1, 2007 (72 FR 42060). The system may include names of
individuals, addresses, phone numbers, fax numbers, e-mail addresses, and customer
numbers. The USPTO believes that the records will be accessed using the individual’s
name. Only authorized personnel will have access to the records, which will be
password protected. The e-mail invitation will contain the associated Privacy Act
Statement for this survey.
I. Analysis Plan
Results from each individual survey will be reviewed to determine whether the
question(s) or problem(s) that initiated the original communications from the customer
was resolved and whether an acceptable level of service was provided by the EBC
during the customer contact. An attempt will be made to contact customers with
unresolved questions or problems and/or to discuss service issues that were reported.
Action will be taken to resolve service issues that can be substantiated. Ongoing
4

statistical analysis will be undertaken to review the adequacy of EBC services and the
level of customer satisfaction associated with the performance of these services.
Suggestions will be reviewed in order to improve existing services and to define needed
additional services.

5