RFI INVENTOR SURVEY 2024 SOW FINAL.pdf

Customer Surveys Program Request for Information (RFI) No. ACQ-24-INV

May 23, 2024

This notice is issued solely for information and planning purposes. It is not a solicitation and does not constitute a request for quotation or proposal. USPTO is not seeking or accepting unsolicited proposals. Telephone calls requesting a solicitation will not be accepted or acknowledged. Participation in this effort is strictly voluntary. No entitlement to payment will arise as a result of submission of a response to the RFI. UPSTO is not liable for costs (direct or indirect) associated with the preparation, submission, or responses to this market survey or any costs associated with the USPTO use of the information. USPTO will not reimburse the respondent for any costs incurred with responding to the RFI. All costs associated with responding to this RFI will be solely at the interested respondent’s expense.

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office

Request for Information

Contents 1 Introduction 2 Purpose 3 Objectives 4 Information Request

4.1 Capability Statement

4.1.1 Corporate Background

4.1.2 Technical Experience

4.2 Statement of Work Feedback

5 Vendor Responses 6 Statement of Work…………………………………………………………………………………………………4

1 Introduction

The Office of Policy and International Affairs (OPIA) is looking to contract services for their new Customer Surveys (CS) program. OPIA advises the Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and the Secretary of Commerce on programs and studies relating to domestic and international intellectual property policy and economics, and conducts the programs under Section 35 U.S.C. 2(b)(11), (12) and (13) to assess the effectiveness of intellectual property protection domestically and throughout the world.

2 Purpose The purpose of this RFI is to obtain vendor capabilities and receive industry feedback on collecting, cleaning, analyzing, and delivering information about inventors named on patent applications submitted to the USPTO. The information collected will assist the USPTO in generating new insights about the inventor community and to understand the characteristics of that community that may influence their engagement in the innovation process, including occupation, income, and education. The information collected will inform the USPTO’s understanding of inventors and applicants experiences before, during, and after filing their patent application in order to track factors that may contribute to their successful (granted) filings, and those factors that might impede their success in the filing process. The analysis of demographic, socioeconomic, and experiential information from inventors will allow the USPTO to improve the level of service and accessibility they provide to the public. The information collected through surveys and conducting studies will provide critical inputs to the USPTO’s ability to compare inventor experiences across demographic groups and facilitate more effective quantification of inter-group disparities. The USPTO will make publicly available reports of experiential studies about patent filing statistics and aggregated anonymized (group-level) data about the demographic information it collects.

3 Objectives The USPTO has identified the CS Program objectives as follows:

a) Select a representative sample of inventors based on the population and characteristics identified by

USPTO

b) Identify the survey mode, instrument development, programming, and contact materials

c) Include a randomized participation incentive

d) Survey administration

e) Data and analysis

4 Information Request Interested vendors responding to this RFI must provide a capability statement demonstrating their capability and capacity to execute the requirements defined in the preliminary SOW incorporated (page 4-6) and experience performing work for efforts similar in size, scope, and complexity. In addition, vendors shall provide feedback on the draft SOW using the template provided in Attachment 1. Importantly, all vendors must be FedRAMP authorized for the protection of personally identifiable information (PII) and will need to have the USPTO undertake an authority to operate (ATO) evaluation.

4.1 Capability Statement

The capability statement shall be comprised of the following sections:

4.1.1 Corporate Background

Please provide the following company background information in your capability statement:

1. Business name and address;

2. Name of company representative, alternate, and their associated business titles and contact information

(inclusive of telephone numbers and email addresses);

3. Business Size for NAICS Code 541611, Administrative Management and General Management Consulting Services, size standard for this code is $16.5M. Indicate if your firm is large, small, and include any applicable socio-economic status such as woman-owned, veteran-owned, 8(a) or Hubzone;

and

4. DUNS number.

5. GSA Schedule contract number

Please be concise and limit your response to this Section to one (1) page.

4.1.2 Technical Experience

Please provide your capabilities as they relate to this requirement, technical experience and any certifications. In addition, please identify up to three (3) past experiences where you successfully performed this type of work within the last five (5) years. While Federal experience is beneficial, experience gained in the private and/or the Federal government sector is sufficient.

Please be concise and limit your response to these questions to a total five (5) pages.

4.2 Statement of Work Feedback

Interested vendors shall provide recommended comments and questions on the preliminary SOW using the template provided in Attachment 2.

5 Vendor Responses

The capability statement shall be in sufficient detail, but not exceed six (6) pages total to complete Sections 4.1.1- 4.1.2.

Interested vendors shall respond no later than 11:00 a.m. on June 3, 2024. All responses shall be submitted via email to Jennifer.Springer@uspto.gov and Emalee.Gawrelski@uspto.gov. Include the RFI number in the subject line and use 12-pt Times New Roman font.

This is a RFI, however, questions are due May 29, 2024 . USPTO will respond to any questions by May 30, 2024.

Via RFI amendment at SAM.gov.

Vendors should mark all confidential and/or proprietary information in the response as applicable. Proprietary information submitted in response to this RFI will be protected from unauthorized disclosure as required by the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR). Information provided by vendors will only be shared with USPTO employees and contractors with signed confidentiality agreements involved with market research.

mailto:Jennifer.Springer@uspto.gov mailto:Emalee.Gawrelski@uspto.gov

STATEMENT OF WORK

For

1. Introduction The Office of Policy and International Affairs (OPIA) is looking to contract services for their new Customer Surveys (CS) program. OPIA advises the Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and the Secretary of Commerce on programs and studies relating to domestic and international intellectual property policy and economics, and conducts the programs under Section 35 U.S.C. 2(b)(11), (12) and (13) to assess the effectiveness of intellectual property protection domestically and throughout the world.

3. Background The Office of the Chief Economist in OPIA is initiating a customer surveys program to generate insights about the inventor community and to understand the characteristics of that community that may influence their engagement in the innovation process, including demographics such as sex, age, occupation, income, and their experiences before, during, and after filing their patent applications at the USPTO.

4. Scope The scope covers the full spectrum of the survey development, data collection processes, database development, data storage compliant with FedRAMP authorization and USPTO ATO for confidentiality and privacy, data cleaning, data delivery, analysis including non-response bias, and focus groups of inventors.

5. Objective(s) The USPTO has identified the CS Program objectives as follows:

a) Select a representative sample of inventors based on the population and characteristics identified by

USPTO

b) Identify the survey mode, instrument development, programming, and contact materials

c) Include a randomized participation incentive

d) Survey administration

e) Data and analysis

6. Tasks The vendor will work with the USPTO to set up a meeting and communication schedule for the work outlined below.

There should be a “kick off” meeting and a regular meeting cadence that reflects the needs of the CS program.

6.1. Select a representative sample of inventors based on the population and characteristics identified by USPTO

6.1.1 Working with the USPTO, the vendor will use state-of-the-art statistical methods to select a representative sample of inventors from a population frame and a statistical design approved by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). The population frame will be supplied by the USPTO based on resident address data for inventors located within the United States and its territories. The USPTO will further supply a set of characteristics such as geographic identifiers, technology groupings, and demographic categories that may be used to stratify the population for sampling. The vendor will work with the USPTO to ensure that the sampling methodology has sufficient power to identify the characteristics of important sub-populations, including under-represented groups.

6.1.2 Working with the population frame and characteristics will involve data evaluation and cleaning steps, such as eliminating duplicate inventor records if those occur and standardizing address content. It will also involve using the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) Coding Accuracy Support System (CASS) to identify Undeliverable As Addressed (UAA) mail prior to any mailing using the DPV Product for validating address information at the physical delivery point level; updating addresses that have changed using the Locatable Address Conversion Service (LACS); providing RDI indicators to flag an address as residential, business, or unknown; and using SuiteLink processing to update business addresses with secondary information when available. .

6.1.3 The approach implemented by the vendor will be documented and replicable. This includes any computer code used for this sampling task, which will be made available to the USPTO for replication and review.

6.2. Identify the survey mode, instrument development, programming, and contact materials

6.2.1 The vendor will work with the USPTO to develop an online version of the OMB approved survey instrument, recommend the use of a particular implementation approach (e.g., the nature and number of points of contact with USPTO stakeholders and survey recipients), and implement the survey using online capabilities and an online environment that is compliant with FedRAMP rules and guidelines.

6.2.2 The vendor will prepare, disseminate, collect, and record all communications related to the survey, and work with the USPTO on communications to the broader stakeholder community, including direct communications with survey recipients. Communications will be on USPTO letterhead and be approved by the USPTO. The vendor will also keep an electronic record of inquiries from and responses to stakeholders and inventors, and related.

6.3. Include a randomized participation incentive

6.3.1 Consistent with current best practices in survey design and administration, the vendor will work with the USPTO to implement a randomized participation incentive. The value and form of this incentive will be determined jointly with the USPTO, but the overall approach must allow for testing and accounting for nonresponse bias consistent with current best practice (see, for instance, Dutz et al. 2022).

6.4. Survey administration

6.4.1 The vendor will carryout all required steps to efficiently deliver the survey, collect the information, and store the raw responses in a secure FedRAMP authorized environment.

6.4.2 Details of the survey administration such as the overall timeline, open period for responses, the number and timing of reminder letters, and related considerations will be determined jointly with the USPTO.

6.4.3 Physical mailing address information will be used to contact inventors. Letters will need to include a URL or QR code, and a login ID to go online and complete the survey. The survey will be optimized for all devices that are internet accessible (e.g., Smartphones, tablets, laptops, and desktop computers).

6.5 Data and analysis

6.5.1 Once the survey closes, the vendor will clean and process the survey data by examining the results to identify inconsistencies in responses and code missing data as either missing due to nonresponse or missing as a result of skip logic. The vendor will also prepare a data dictionary that includes the variables names and descriptions.

6.5.2 The vendor will conduct a statistical analysis of the cleaned data file. That analysis will include tests and adjustments for nonresponse as described in the literature (e.g., Dutz et al. 2022). All tests and adjustments must be fully documented and replicable, with the relevant computer code included as part of the final deliverables.

6.5.3 Refine and optimize quality assurance procedures to reach the highest standards of data quality and analysis as needed.

7. Deliverables and Timeline The deliverables are:

1. A descriptive report of the survey results that includes data visualizations. The report contents will follow industry best practices and will also include:

a . A description of the data cleaning and processing to create the final datafile, and the computer code used to perform these steps.

chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https:/www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w29549/w29549.pdf

b. A description of the randomized participation incentive, how responses varied by incentive, and how the incentive information was used to test and account for nonresponse bias

2. Bulk datasets delivered using secure and confidential transfer protocols.

a . The raw uncleaned response data with unique inventor IDs

b. Metadata on the survey implementation such as the number of visits to complete the survey and time spent

c. The cleaned dataset used to produce the descriptive report

8. Government-Furnished Property None

9. Security Requirements None

10. Place of Performance Contractor’s facility

11. Period of Performance Base year -12 months, and four one-year options.

4.2 Statement of Work Feedback