TPP Plant-Based Intellectual Property Regulations (Malaysia, Vietnam, Brunei) Patent Office
| Tracking # |
A-16-00004 ; F-16-00025 |
| Submitted | Oct. 29, 2015 |
| Est. Completion | Jan. 11, 2016 |
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Communications
From: Lukas Knight
To Whom It May Concern:
This is a request under the Freedom of Information Act. I hereby request the following records:
Correspondence within the last six years: messages exchanged between employees of the United States Patent and Trademark Office and email addresses ending in any of the country code top-level domain names " .my " for Malaysia ( i.e. xxxxx@malaysia.gov.my ), " .bn " for Brunei, and " .vn " for Vietnam. I request copies of these correspondences, but only in those cases in which an email thread includes references to one or more of the following: "Trans-Pacific Partnership", "TPP", "copyright", "trademark", "patent", "plants", "seeds", "farmers", "crop rotation", or "intellectual property". I also request any internal Patent and Trademark Office records that pertain to any of these three countries in connection with the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
The requested documents will be made available to the general public, and this request is not being made for commercial purposes.
In the event that fees cannot be waived, I would be grateful if you would inform me of the total charges in advance of fulfilling my request. I would prefer the request filled electronically, by e-mail attachment if available or CD-ROM if not.
Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter. I look forward to receiving your response to this request within 20 business days, as the statute requires.
Sincerely,
Lukas Knight
From: Omar, Natasha
None
From: Seldon, Karon
None
From: Lukas Knight
I am looking for correspondence that contains "TPP" or "Trans-Pacific Partnership" AND one or more of the eight other terms. Any records circulated within the USPTO, between the USPTO and other U.S.A. government agencies, and between the USPTO and members of the governments of Malaysia, Vietnam, or Brunei as they pertain specifically to these nations and the TPP are included in this request. Thank you for helping me to clarify and refine the search terms.
From: Seldon, Karon
None
From: Lukas Knight
This specific request was assigned tracking number F-16-00025. For future communications regarding this request please use requests@muckrock.com.
From: Lukas Knight
This specific request was assigned tracking number F-16-00025. For future communications regarding this request please use requests@muckrock.com.
From: Lukas Knight
I would like to appeal my classification as a noncommercial requester. I am an employee of Muckrock (https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2015/dec/01/cesar-chavez-fbi-file/) requesting with the intention of publishing unique journalistic works regarding the requested documents.
From: FOIA Requests
From: Heaton, John (Ricou)
Dear Mr. Knight,
We would like to extend the period to respond to the three above referenced FOIA appeals for fee related matters by five working days until January 11, 2016. We anticipate having a decision to you on these three appeals by that date. If you have any objection to that, please let me know (and I'd be more than happy to discuss this with you by telephone).
Also, if you have a question about any of your other currently pending FOIA requests, please let me know. Because you have a number of different FOIA requests currently pending with us and your FOIA correspondence generally references your tracking number while our correspondence uses our USPTO tracking number, it's not hard to imagine that some correspondence may not have been tracked to the right FOIA request. If you do have any questions, please send an email to me directly.
Thank you and I hope you enjoyed the holiday season.
Best,
Ricou
Ricou Heaton
U.S. Patent & Trademark Office
Office of the General Counsel
Office of General Law
Tel: 571-270-7420
ricou.heaton@uspto.gov
From: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
A letter stating that the request appeal has been succesful.
From: Clarke, Chieko
Mr. Lukas Knight,
The Agency's response to Freedom of Information Act Appeal A-16-00004 (Appeal of Request No. F-16-00025) is attached. This response was also sent via certified mail.
_______________________
Chieko Clarke
Associate Counsel
Office of General Law
Office of the General Counsel
U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
Tel. 571-272-8201
Chieko.clarke@uspto.gov<mailto:Chieko.clarke@uspto.gov>
From: Heaton, Ricou
Dear Mr. Knight,
Please find attached correspondence relating to this FOIA request.
Best regards,
Ricou Heaton
FOIA Officer
From: Lukas Knight
Muckrock has not charged any one a fee of any kind for the submission of this request. I have no additional news article citations I am interested in submitting, nor is that a necessary stipulation of established case law regarding fee classification. I do intend to publish unique journalistic works on Muckrock.com regarding the requested documents, and Muckrock.com is an established internet-based news-based publication.
As summarized by the Justice Department, Office of Information Policy (see: http://www.justice.gov/oip/long-v-dhs-no-14-807-2015-wl-3961312-ddc-june-29-2015-cooper-j):
"...the court finds that "[p]laintiffs' uncontested representations that they intend and have the ability to disseminate new research to the public were sufficient to meet the definition of representatives of the news media." The court specifically addresses defendant's counter arguments and, in response, finds that "[i]ncorporating information from a range of sources . . . is not essential for news media status[,]"[...]"
From: Heaton, Ricou
Dear Mr. Knight,
Please find attached correspondence concerning the above referenced FOIA request.
Ricou Heaton
FOIA Officer
From: Heaton, Ricou
Dear Mr. Knight,
Please find attached correspondence relating to this FOIA request.
Best regards,
Ricou Heaton
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