PATENT_ANALYTICS_R1_8-2014.doc

TITLE: PATENT ANALYTICS

SOLICITATION NO.: SB1341-14-RQ-0628

THIS IS A COMBINED SYNOPSIS/SOLICITATION FOR COMMERCIAL SERVICES PREPARED IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE FORMAT IN FAR SUBPART 12.6 – STREAMLINED PROCEDURES FOR EVALUATION AND SOLICITATION FOR COMMERCIAL ITEMS-AS SUPPLEMENTED WITH ADDITIONAL INFORMATION INCLUDED IN THIS NOTICE. FAR PART 13 SIMPLIFIED ACQUISITION PROCEDURES ARE UTILIZED IN THIS PROCUREMENT. THIS ANNOUNCEMENT CONSTITUTES THE ONLY SOLICITATION; QUOTATIONS ARE BEING REQUESTED AND A WRITTEN SOLICITATION DOCUMENT WILL NOT BE ISSUED. This solicitation is a Request for Quotation (RFQ). The solicitation document and incorporated provisions and clauses are those in effect through Federal Acquisition Circular (FAC) 2005-76.***

*** The associated North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS) code for this procurement is 541690 with a small business size standard of $15.0M. This acquisition is 100% set-aside for small business***

***The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has a requirement to construct a matched patent dataset from references to NIST technical outputs and to produce a White Paper summarizing the results.***

***All interested small businesses may provide a firm fixed-price quotation for the following:

CLIN 0001: Develop algorithms that search for use or citations of the NIST-provided publications and other standard setting activities such as documentary standards, Standard Reference Materials (SRMs), and software downloads in patent applications and issued patents in the publicly available USPTO database.

QTY: 1 JOB

CLIN 0002: Produce a dataset of patenting activity that includes evidence of referencing NIST publications and standard setting activities.

QTY: 1 JOB

CLIN 0003: Produce a White Paper that documents the methodology of the previously developed algorithms and assesses the efficacy and impact of NIST publications and research vs. other activities developed in the algorithm.

QTY: 1 JOB

The following is the Statement of Work (SoW):

Patent Analytics

I. Background

In 2011, the President issued the Memorandum “Accelerating Technology Transfer and Commercialization of Federal Research in Support of High-Growth Businesses.” Among other things, this memorandum directed that federal agencies take actions “to establish goals and measure performance, streamline administrative processes, and facilitate local and regional partnerships in order to accelerate technology transfer and support private sector commercialization.” To further this goal, the Memorandum indicated the Secretary of Commerce “shall improve and expand, where appropriate, its collection of metrics. “ In response to this Memorandum, NIST identified numerous opportunities to improve technology transfer metrics including NIST standards-related technical outputs (documentary standards, SRMS, SRDs, calibrations services, software downloads), knowledge and training outputs (publications, post-docs, non-NIST employees, and research participants) and measures of stakeholder interaction (support for young and entrepreneurial businesses, CRADAs, non-NIST employees, research participants, formal and informal collaborations). In addition to the collection of new output metrics NIST proposed to consider the feasibility of developing new metrics and techniques that moved beyond output metrics to measuring the impact that NIST technical outputs have on all NIST stakeholders ranging from academic researchers to industrial practitioners who all depend on NIST technology transfer activities and outputs.

Currently NIST uses IP protection and licensing of this IP as a key indicator of NIST’s impact on private sector innovation. Over the past five years, NIST has averaged fewer than 20 patent applications and fewer than 10 patents issued annually. These limited metrics drastically underrepresent the true impact that NIST technical outputs have on private sector innovation.

NIST produces a wide array of technical outputs such as standard reference materials and data, contributing to documentary standards development and perhaps most significantly publishing scientific research. Historically, NIST has performed economic impact studies to analyze the costs and benefits of these NIST technical outputs. A review of these studies indicates that several of these studies have relied on the paper trail created by private sector patent filings to trace the transfer of NIST technical outputs to private sector economic impact. Significantly this is frequently done by citing NIST scientific publications as prior art or other references in patent applications. For example, in the one study of critical manufacturing measurement tools, an examination of the non-patent prior art references as well as the technical content of both NIST publications and the patents in question indicated that private sector innovations were “clearly based on, or influenced by, the work performed at NIST in the preceding decade.” Current technology transfer metrics do not capture this critical connection between the array of NIST technology transfer outputs and private sector patent applications.

The connection between openly published scientific literature and patenting has proven to be a fertile ground from economic research. For example, Stern and Murray (2005) leverage innovations that are “simultaneously instantiated as a scientific research article and a patent application” to examine the impact of patent issuance on follow-on research. Similar analysis of paper-patent pairs has been used to analyze the connection between the production of scientific knowledge and industrial innovation in numerous high technology industries. This research demonstrates the feasibility of connecting scientific knowledge to private sector innovation through patent references. However, also relevant to NIST, similar exercises have also been performed to connect standards activities to patent citations. Breitzman (2013) has analyzed patent citations to IEEE papers, conferences and standards. Patent citation analysis represents a significant opportunity to broadly capture the impact of the full array of NIST technical outputs on private sector innovation.

This analysis requires data on the universe of patents, a catalog of NIST publications and standards activities, and highly developed algorithms to draw connections between these two data sources. NIST is currently developing and enhancing catalogs of publications and standards activities but does not have access to the universe of patent applications and has not developed the algorithms needed to connect NIST data and patent data.

II. Scope of Work

The Contractor shall use a list of publications provided by NIST and shall independently develop algorithms based upon key words to define other NIST standards activities such as documentary standards, Standard Reference Materials (SRMs), and software downloads to assess the prevalence and impacts of NIST publications and standards activities for private sector patenting activity.

The Contractor shall develop the algorithms that will search for NIST connections in the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) database, construct a dataset of patent applications and issued patents based upon the usage of NIST publications and standards activities defined by the algorithm.

The Contractor shall also produce a white paper documenting the methodology of these efforts and develop policy conclusions regarding the efficacy and impact of the provided NIST publications vs. other activities developed in the algorithm.

III. Specific Tasks

1. Develop algorithms that search for use or citations of NIST publications, patents, documentary standards, Standard Reference Materials (SRMs), Standard Reference Data Products (SRDs), Calibrations services, and software downloads in patent applications and issued patents in the publicly available USPTO database.

2. Produce a dataset of patenting activity that includes evidence of referencing NIST activities in Task 1. The dataset should include the identifying patent information (patent application or issued no.) and the following elements: Assignee, Inventor(s), Patent Class, and summary citation information.

3. Produce a white paper for NIST that documents the methodology of the previously developed algorithms and assesses the efficacy and impact of NIST publications and research vs. other activities specified in Task 1.

IV. Deliverables and Due Dates

V. Period of Performance and Place of Performance

The period of performance shall be 12 months from the date of award.

All work shall be accomplished at the Contractor’s facility.

VI. Government Furnished Property, Data, and/or Information

The Contractor will be provided a list of NIST Publications and Patents by NIST’s Economic Analysis Office (EAO) within 2 weeks post award. There will be no need for the Contractor to access any NIST networks or databases.

VII. Contractor’s Minimum Qualifications

Minimum of 5 years of experience in patent analytics.

The Project Lead shall possess at least a Master’s Degree in either economics, statistics, mathematics, or computer science.

VIII. Inspection/Acceptance

The NIST COR will review the document defined in Task 1 and notify the Contractor in writing if the document describing the approach addresses all of the NIST activities specified in Task 1 within 2 weeks of receiving the document. If the document omits any of these activities, the Contractor shall make revisions within 2 weeks of receiving the written comments from NIST.

The NIST COR will review the data set of patents and summary patent variables and notify the Contractor in writing if the data set is acceptable or of any recommended changes to the variables delivered from USPTO. The data fields required are specified in Task 2. The Contractor shall make NIST-recommended revisions to the data set within 1 month of receiving the written comments from NIST.

The NIST COR will review the White Paper and notify the Contractor in writing within 2 weeks if the paper is acceptable or of any recommended changes to the paper. The Contractor shall make revisions to the paper within 1 month of receiving the written comments from NIST.

***END OF STATEMENT OF WORK***

***QUOTATION PREPARATION INSTRUCTIONS***

***All offerors shall submit the following:

Technical Quotation (Vol. I), Past Performance/References (Vol. II) and a Business/Pricing Quotation (Vol. III), as three (3) separate electronic files. Incomplete quotations may be considered non-compliant and removed from further consideration. Quotations shall be clearly and concisely written as well as being neat, indexed (cross-indexed as appropriate) and logically assembled. All pages of each part shall be appropriately numbered and identified with the name of the offeror, the date, and the solicitation number. A one-page transmittal letter signed by an individual authorized to commit the organization shall be transmitted with the quotation to the Government. Each quotation shall be on 8.5” x 11” paper, in a commercially standard font, not smaller than 12 point font. Each page in the quotation shall be separately numbered. The quotation shall be limited to twenty (20) single-sided, single-spaced pages (excluding the letter of transmittal, resumes, certifications, cover letter, and past-performance information).

Overall Arrangement of Documents

Technical Quotation addressing all technical subfactors (Volume I) - No pricing information shall be included in the technical quotation

Past Performance/References (Volume II)

Business/Pricing Quotation (Volume III)

VOLUME I: TECHNICAL

NIST will evaluate quotations, based on the information submitted in support of these factors/subfactors, using the following subfactors:

Technical SubFactor 1 Technical Approach

The offeror shall provide sufficient information to demonstrate its: a) understanding of NIST-related activities beyond NIST patents and publications, and b) understanding of the data available through USPTO; and, include a concise, detailed, and thorough discussion of its methodology for the search algorithms that demonstrate an ability to capture the full scope of NIST’s activities.

Technical SubFactor 2 Organizational Experience

The offeror shall describe its organizational experience in performing three (3) recent and relevant projects for conducting patent analyses of a similar nature for Science and Technology (S&T) agencies.

Technical SubFactor 3 Key Personnel Qualifications

The offeror shall demonstrate by a resume that its proposed key personnel have the qualifications noted in Section VII of the SoW and demonstrate an ability to write reports for S&T agencies for policy makers and industry experts.

VOLUME II: PAST PERFORMANCE/REFERENCES

The offeror shall provide three (3) examples of past performance conducted within the last five years of contracts for relevant work of a similar type and scope as the current requirement with federal, state or local governments and/or commercial customers. If the offeror has no relevant past performance it should include a statement to that effect in its quotation. The government reserves the right to consider past performance data obtained from sources other than those provided by the offeror in its quotation.

The description of each reference described in this section shall not exceed a half page. For each of the contracts, the offeror shall provide the following information:

· Contract number

· Client’s name and address and point of contact, including telephone number and e-mail address

· Dollar value

· Period of performance

· Narrative describing the requirement and its relevance to the current requirement

· Name of contracting officer or point of contact, telephone number and e-mail address

The offeror may include: a) past performance information regarding any problems encountered on the contracts described above and corrective actions taken to resolve those problems; and b) Any quality awards or certifications, letters of appreciation, commendations, industry recognition of excellence or special awards received with respect to performance of services. The offeror shall describe when the award, certification, etc. was received, and may provide as an attachment to this part.

VOLUME III: PRICE

1. Price - firm, fixed-price per task to conduct the patent analytics defined in the SoW; the following tables shall be used for labor calculation purposes:

PROPOSED LABOR CATEGORIES

Task 1 – Develop Algorithms

1.

2.

TOTAL:

Task 2 – Produce Dataset

1.

2.

TOTAL:

Task 3 – Produce a White Paper

1.

2.

TOTAL:

***UNLESS THE OFFEROR PROPOSES AN ALTERNATIVE INVOICING FREQUENCY, INVOICING IS EXPECTED TO BE PER SUCCESSFULLY COMPLETED TASK AND GOVERNMENT ACCEPTANCE OF THE ASSOCIATED DELIVERABLE(S)***

***EVALUATION***

The Government will award a purchase order resulting from this solicitation to the responsible offeror whose quotation is the most highly rated, and conforming to the solicitation, results in the best value to the Government, non-price and price factors considered. NIST reserves the right to make award to other than the lowest-priced offeror or to the offeror ranked highest technically, if it determines that to do so would result in the best value to the Government.

The Government intends to make a single award and reserves the right to make no award as a result of this RFQ.

The Government intends to evaluate quotations and award a purchase order without discussions with offerors. Therefore, the offeror's initial quotation should contain the offeror's best terms from a price and technical standpoint. However, the Government reserves the right to conduct discussions if later determined by the Contracting Officer to be necessary. The Government may reject any and or all quotations if such action is in the public interest; accept other than the lowest price quotation; and waive informalities and minor irregularities in quotation received.

Non-price factors are listed in descending order of importance. Technical is more important than Past Performance. Technical subfactors are of equal importance. Technical and Past Performance, when combined, are approximately equal in importance to price.

***EVALUATION CRITERIA***

***Technical

***Technical SubFactor 1 Technical Approach

The Government will evaluate the offeror's technical approach based on the information contained in the technical quotation to determine the extent of its understanding of NIST-related activities beyond NIST patents and publications and the data available through USPTO and the integrity of the offeror's proposed algorithm methodology(s) to effectively meet and comply with the tasks outlined in the SoW.

***Technical SubFactor 2 Organizational Experience

The Government will evaluate the offeror’s organizational experience examples submitted to determine the extent to which the offeror’s general background and experience demonstrate its ability to conduct patent analyses for S&T agencies.

***Technical SubFactor 3 Key Personnel

The resume(s) of the proposed key personnel will be evaluated to determine the extent to which their background and work experience demonstrate an ability to effectively conduct patent citation analyses and summarize the results in a White Paper.

***Past Performance The Government will evaluate the offeror's past performance information to determine its relevance to the current requirements and the extent to which it demonstrates that the offeror has successfully completed relevant contracts in the past five (5) years. In assessing the offeror's past performance, NIST may evaluate the quality, timeliness, and ability to control cost and schedule of the past work. The Government will assign a neutral rating to offerors with no relevant past performance in the past three years. Past performance will be evaluated by contacting appropriate references, including NIST references, if applicable.

***Price

The Government will evaluate the offeror's proposed prices to determine whether the proposed prices are realistic and reasonable in relation to the solicitation requirements.

CLAUSES

The full text of a FAR provision or clause may be accessed electronically at http://acquisition.gov/far/index.html

The following FAR provisions apply to this acquisition:

52.212-1 Instructions to Offerors – Commercial Items;

52.212-3 Offerors Representations and Certifications- Commercial Items;

52.222-22 Previous Contracts and Compliance Reports;

52.222-25 Affirmative Action Compliance;

52.225-25 Prohibition on Contracting with Entities Engaging in Sanctioned Activities Relating to Iran – Representation and Certification 52.252-1 Solicitation Provisions Incorporated by Reference

Solicitation Provisions Incorporated by Reference (Feb 1998)

This solicitation incorporates one or more solicitation provisions by reference, with the same force and effect as if they were given in full text. Upon request, the Contracting Officer will make their full text available. The offeror is cautioned that the listed provisions may include blocks that must be completed by the offeror and submitted with its quotation or offer. In lieu of submitting the full text of those provisions, the offeror may identify the provision by paragraph identifier and provide the appropriate information with its quotation or offer. Also, the full text of a solicitation provision may be accessed electronically at this/these address(es): http://acquisition.gov/far/index.html

All interested offerors must be actively registered in the System for Award Management (SAM) website located at https://www.sam.gov and must complete annual representations on-line in SAM in accordance with FAR 52.212-3 Offerors Representations and Certifications- Commercial Items. If paragraph (j) of the provision is applicable, a written submission is required.

The following FAR clauses apply to this acquisition:

52.204-7 System for Award Management;

52.217-8 Option to Extend Services

Option to Extend Services (Nov 1999)

The Government may require continued performance of any services within the limits and at the rates specified in the contract. These rates may be adjusted only as a result of revisions to prevailing labor rates provided by the Secretary of Labor. The option provision may be exercised more than once, but the total extension of performance hereunder shall not exceed 6 months. The Contracting Officer may exercise the option by written notice to the Contractor within 30 days of contract expiration.

52.227-14 Rights in Data—General;

52.232-40 Providing Accelerated Payments to Small Business Subcontractors;

52.252-2 Clauses Incorporated by Reference;

Clauses Incorporated By Reference (Feb 1998)

This contract incorporates one or more clauses by reference, with the same force and effect as if they were given in full text. Upon request, the Contracting Officer will make their full text available. Also, the full text of a clause may be accessed electronically at this/these address(es): http://acquisition.gov/far/index.html

52.212-4 Contract Terms and Conditions—Commercial Items;

52.212-5 Contract Terms and Conditions Required to Implement Statutes or Executive Orders— Commercial Items including subparagraphs:

52.204-10 Reporting Executive Compensation and First-Tier Subcontract Awards;

52.219-6 Notice of Total Small Business Set-Aside

52.219-13 Notice of Set-Aside of Orders;

52.222-3 Convict Labor;

52.222-21 Prohibition of Segregated Facilities;

52.222-26 Equal Opportunity;

52.222-36 Affirmative Action for Workers with Disabilities;

52.223-18 Contractor Policy to Ban Text Messaging While Driving;

52.225-13 Restriction on Certain Foreign Purchases; and 52.232-33 Payment by Electronic Funds Transfer-Central Contractor Registration The following Department of Commerce (CAR) provision applies to this acquisition:

1352.213-70 Evaluation Utilizing Simplified Acquisition Procedures

The following Department of Commerce (CAR) clauses apply to this acquisition:

1352.201-70 Contracting Officer’s Authority;

1352.201-72 Contracting Officer’s Representative;

1352.208-70 Restrictions on Printing and Duplicating;

1352.209-72 Restrictions Against Disclosure;

1352.209-73 Compliance with the Laws;

1352.209-74 Organizational Conflict of Interest;

1352.237-75 Key Personnel;

1352.246-70 Place of Acceptance;

NIST LOCAL CLAUSE - BILLING INSTRUCTIONS:

(a) NIST prefers electronic Invoice/Voucher submissions and they should be emailed to invoice@nist.gov

(b) Each Invoice or Voucher submitted shall include the following: (1) Contract Number. (2) Contractor Name and Address. (3) Date of Invoice. (4) Invoice Number. (5) Amount of Invoice and Cumulative Amount Invoiced to-date. (6) Contract Line Item Number (CLIN). (7) Description, Quantity, Unit of Measure, Unit Price, and Extended Price of Supplies/Services Delivered. (8) Prompt Payment Discount Terms, if Offered. (9) Any other information or documentation required by the contract.

(c) In the event electronic submissions are not used, The Contractor shall submit an original invoice or voucher in accordance with the payment provisions of this contract to:

NIST: Accounts Payable Office

100 Bureau Drive, Mail Stop 1621

Gaithersburg, MD 20899-1621 And other appropriate clauses as needed

Department of Commerce Agency-Level Protest Procedures Level above the Contracting Officer is also incorporated. It can be downloaded at www.nist.gov/admin/od/contract/agency.htm ***This is an Open-Market Combined Synopsis/Solicitation for services as defined herein. The Government intends to award a Purchase Order as a result of this Combined Synopsis/Solicitation that will include the terms and conditions that are set forth herein. In order to facilitate the award process, ALL quotes shall include a statement regarding the terms and conditions herein as follows:

The Offeror shall state “The terms and conditions in the solicitation are acceptable to be included in the award document without modification, deletion, or addition.”

OR

The Offeror shall state “The terms and conditions in the solicitation are acceptable to be included in the award document with the exception, deletion, or addition of the following:

Offeror shall list exception(s) and rationale for the exception(s).

Offerors that fail to furnish required representations or information, or reject the terms and conditions of the solicitation may be excluded from consideration.

***Please note that this procurement is not being conducted under the GSA Federal Supply Schedule (FSS) program or another Government-Wide Area Contract (GWAC). If an Offeror submits a quotation based upon an FSS or GWAC contract, the Government will accept the quoted price. However, the terms and conditions stated herein will be included in any resultant Purchase Order, not the terms and conditions of the Offeror’s FSS or GWAC contract, and the statement required above shall be included in the quotation.

***Offerors shall e-mail their quotation to randy.schroyer@nist.gov so that it is received by the response date/time for this solicitation. It is the responsibility of the offeror to confirm NIST’s receipt of its quotation. Each quotation shall include sufficient data to allow the Government to determine the amount, realism and consistency of the quoted fixed price.

***All questions regarding this solicitation shall be submitted in writing via e-mail to the Contract Specialist, Randy Schroyer, at randy.schroyer@nist.gov no later than August 22, 2014.

***The due date and time for receipt of quotations is August 29, 2014 no later than 5:00PM EST.