2008 Final eCommerce Survey Justification

OMB Clearance Request
for the
USPTO – 2008 e-Commerce Satisfaction Measurement
A. Background
This survey was originally submitted to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for
review on June 22, 2007. On September 21, 2007, OMB returned the survey to the
USPTO, stating that it was outside of the generic clearance. The OMB had the
following concerns about the survey:
1. A survey that purports to be a statistical representation of a population cannot
be open to the public at large nor can it be open for multiple completions.
2. The program hasn’t adequately identified:
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•
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the universe that it wants to sample,
a sampling frame that makes sense with the universe, and
a method for randomly sampling from the sample frame.

3. A blast e-mail of over 20,000 doesn’t make sense on any of these fronts.
4. The instrument seems to focus attention on firms and organizations, not
practitioners.
5. The distribution method means that some firms will have several people
completing the survey on its behalf, many of which will be sure to be
contradictory.
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has addressed OMB’s
concerns about the survey and has incorporated their responses into this revised
justification statement.
B. Survey Purpose
This survey is being conducted by the USPTO’s Search and Information Resources
Administration (SIRA). SIRA is involved in the development of e-Commerce initiatives,
particularly the electronic filing of patent applications at the USPTO. Currently, the
USPTO estimates that nearly 50% of patent applications are being filed electronically.
The USPTO wants to increase the number of patent applications filed electronically to
100% within the next two years. The target audience for this survey is pro se,
corporate, and IP firm applicants who are individual users of the USPTO’s e-Commerce
products, such as Private PAIR and EFS-Web.
This survey has been designed to measure the experience and satisfaction levels of
individual users of the USPTO’s e-Commerce tools, such as EFS-Web and Private

PAIR. The USPTO will use the data collected from the 2008 e-Commerce Satisfaction
Measurement to better understand user perception of these tools and issues that may
help drive higher adoption rates of each product. The USPTO will also use this
information for strategic planning, allocation of resources, the establishment of service
standards and performance goals, to tailor efficient and cost-effective customer
satisfaction improvement strategies, to assess customer priorities in service
characteristics, and to identify areas where service offerings differ from customer needs
and expectations.
There are no statutes or regulations requiring the USPTO to conduct this customer
satisfaction measurement. The USPTO uses the 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.
C. Survey Design
The 2008 e-Commerce Satisfaction Measurement is a voluntary, electronic survey that
will be not available in a paper format. The USPTO is moving to an electronic
environment and therefore prefers to administer the survey via the web to coincide with
other e-government initiatives. Customers access EFS-Web through the Internet and
prefer to complete the survey quickly online. The USPTO believes that this proposed
data collection effort will be a one-time assessment of electronic filers’ activities, needs,
and satisfaction levels.
The survey will be handled by Vovici Corporation, a survey contractor. Customers will
take the survey through Vovici’s website. The survey will be designed to reflect only the
USPTO’s branding; Vovici’s logos will not appear on the survey.
This questionnaire will only be administered online, since the user base for EFS-Web
and other e-Commerce initiatives are assumed to have access to the Internet.
Instructions for using the online survey will be provided in an e-mail invitation sent out to
users of the system. Customers will access the survey through the URL provided in the
e-mail. The survey will reside in a secured folder on the Vovici and USPTO websites.
Usernames, passwords, and access codes will not be needed to access the eCommerce Survey.
The survey contains approximately 32 questions and asks about a variety of concerns
with electronic filings, Private PAIR and other online tools, such as overall experience,
ease of use, improvements to the system, staff responsiveness, questions concerning
the information technology, the number of applications filed and the type filed, who files
the applications, etc.

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D. Respondent Pool
At this time, the USPTO estimates approximately 22,000 potential respondents based
upon those who have voluntarily opted-in to receive information on and communication
about the USPTO’s e-Commerce initiatives. The USPTO has a list of over 22,000
names of applicants who will receive this information and communications. The names
have been gathered over the past year and a half from a variety of forums, including the
filings through EFS-Web, attendance at small webinars, attendance at large webcasts,
attendance at in-person as well as web-based training, and attendance at conferences.
This list contains names of pro se filers and applicants from firms and corporations.
The list contains names of pro se filers and applicants from law firms and corporations
of all sizes. The USPTO believes that this diversity will accurately portray customer
requirements and the quality of the service.
E. Sampling Method
The USPTO proposes to randomly sample 25% of the list of pro se filers and applicants
from law firms and corporations. This will yield a sample size of approximately 5,500
applicants. The sample will be generated using the native randomization capabilities of
an automated feedback tool. Out of the sample of 5,500 applicants, the USPTO
believes that 1,018 survey responses will be received. By attaining this level of
response, it is anticipated that the survey will be able to achieve a confidence interval of
95% and a margin of error of +/- 3%.
F. Collection Procedures
The 2008 e-Commerce Satisfaction Measurement will only be available online and can
be accessed through the URL that will be provided to users via e-mail. This e-mail will
be distributed using the mail manager function available with the automated feedback
tool. The e-mail invitation will provide an introduction to the survey and will also explain
its purpose. Instructions with the survey will explain that the USPTO is sponsoring the
voluntary survey and that all responses will remain confidential. Users will receive prenotification of the survey via a newsletter.
There is only one version of the survey, so users will only be responding once. A
survey hyperlink will be generated that is unique to each recipient. Through this
approach, the system will automatically track which survey invitations have been
delivered, which survey invitation recipients have completed the survey and which have
not. Once the respondent clicks on the survey link, data from the survey link will be
populated into the online survey’s database. Upon completion of a survey, the system
will deactivate the survey link provided to the individual recipient and will prevent the
recipient from completing the survey more than once. The USPTO believes that this
approach will limit multiple responses from individual respondents. Users can direct any
questions they have concerning the survey to the Electronic Business Center.

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Those who are invited to take the survey will be asked to provide their answers as
individual users in order to allow the USPTO to obtain valid and reliable data on user
perceptions of the e-Commerce products. Because the USPTO is attempting to obtain
attitudinal data from a cross-section of e-Commerce product users, regardless of their
affiliation with a law firm, corporation, or pro se status, the survey results will be valid
even if multiple users from the same corporation or law firm provide responses that may
not reflect the overall firm’s consensus view of the products.
The USPTO will not run a data-matching program to look for identical responses across
submissions. It may be rerouted to the appropriate individual if the recipient is not able
to answer the questions.
G. Expected Response Rate
The USPTO anticipates that 18.5% of those surveyed will respond, for an estimated
1,018 completed surveys. Since the survey is completed electronically, the USPTO
estimates that it will take approximately 10 minutes (0.17 hours) to complete the survey.
Because users often receive information by e-mail, they are familiar with the available
products and can answer the proposed questions with ease. By addressing only
familiar topics and using a brief survey instrument, the USPTO believes that it has
minimized the burden on any small entities responding 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 that is used to determine the burden hour costs to the public for
this information collection. These are fully loaded hourly rates.
Based on the estimated number of responses and the completion time for these
surveys, the USPTO estimates that a total of 173 burden hours per year will be
associated with this survey (0.17 hours X 1,018 responses = 173 hours). Multiplying
that against the hourly rate of $154.20, gives a total respondent cost burden of $26,677
(173 hours X $154.20 = $26,677) for the 2008 e-Commerce Satisfaction Measurement.
H. Follow-up Procedures Employed
Since the survey is applicable to a wide group of USPTO customers, contact with this
group is typically impersonal and infrequent. The SIRA team will provide advance
notification of the survey through normal communication methods, such as the
newsletter and e-mails. The USPTO will track responses on a count basis, not

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individual responses. The count will be based on the number of completed surveys that
are received.
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. Throughout the Beta phase and in early development focus groups, the EFSWeb development team communicated with users on a frequent and personal basis. As
a result, users have seen their requests and requirements built into the previous
releases of the system. Detailed results from the survey will not be posted on the
website, but users will be notified of upcoming system requirements and changes which
are based on their feedback.
I. Assurance of Confidentiality
Data collected from this survey will be confidential and will not be linked to the
respondent. All user information that is used for distributing the e-mail invitations to the
survey will be maintained in a separate file from the quantitative data. Respondents are
not required to provide any identifying information such as their name, address, or
Social Security Number.
The 2008 e-Commerce Satisfaction Measurement is completed online. Respondents
will need the URL for the survey site to enter the survey; the URL will be provided in an
e-mail to the respondent. The online survey will not record or collect any identifying
information. Survey findings will be released in summary format only.
The electronic version of the survey will be in HTML format and will be hosted on the
contractor’s website. The survey will reside in a secured folder on the contractor’s and
the USPTO’s website. There will be no links to the survey instrument or communication
of the survey link provided outside of the e-mail sent to desired respondents. This will
ensure that the desired respondents are the only ones who accessed the survey.
J. Analysis Plan
There is no plan to publish this information for statistical use. The information will be
used to ensure that customer usage patterns, needs, and satisfaction levels are known
should program changes be desired. The enumeration period for the survey is
expected to run for approximately one year. The SIRA Development Team may choose
to share particular findings with users through normal communication vehicles, but there
are no plans for a formal report to be distributed to respondents. The results of the
survey will not be posted on the website.

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