21736 Federal Register / Vol. 79, No. 74 / Thursday, April 17, 2014 / Notices
collected legally from any species of cetaceans and pinnipeds, except walrus, for the purposes of scientific research including studies on taxonomy, genetic diversity, population structure, abundance and individual movement of cetaceans and pinnipeds. No takes of live animals, direct or indirect, are authorized by the permit. The permit expires on February 28, 2019.
In compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (42 U.S.C. 4321 et seq.), a final determination has been made that the activity proposed is categorically excluded from the requirement to prepare an environmental assessment or environmental impact statement.
As required by the ESA, issuance of this permit was based on a finding that such permit: (1) Was applied for in good faith; (2) will not operate to the disadvantage of such endangered species; and (3) is consistent with the purposes and policies set forth in section 2 of the ESA.
Dated: April 8, 2014. Tammy C. Adams, Acting Chief, Permits and Conservation Division, Office of Protected Resources, National Marine Fisheries Service. [FR Doc. 2014–08764 Filed 4–16–14; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3510–22–P
DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Evaluation of State Coastal Management Programs
AGENCY: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management, National Ocean Service, Commerce. ACTION: Notice of intent to evaluate.
SUMMARY: The NOAA Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management (OCRM) announces its intent to evaluate the performance of the Massachusetts, Texas, and Michigan Coastal Management Programs.
The Coastal Zone Management Program evaluations will be conducted pursuant to section 312 of the Coastal Zone Management Act of 1972, as amended (CZMA) and regulations at 15 CFR part 923, Subpart L. The CZMA requires continuing review of the performance of states with respect to coastal program implementation. Evaluation of a Coastal Management Program requires findings concerning the extent to which a state has met the national objectives, adhered to its
Coastal Management Program document approved by the Secretary of Commerce, and adhered to the terms of financial assistance awards funded under the CZMA.
The evaluations will include a public meeting, consideration of written public comments and consultations with interested Federal, state, and local agencies and members of the public. When the evaluation is completed, OCRM will place a notice in the Federal Register announcing the availability of the Final Evaluation Findings. Notice is hereby given of the date, local time, and location of the public meeting.
Date and Time: The Massachusetts Coastal Management Program public meeting will be held on Thursday, June 5th at 4:30 p.m. local time at the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, 2nd Floor Conference Room D, 100 Cambridge Street, Boston, Massachusetts 02114. A picture ID is required for building entry.
The Michigan Coastal Management Program public meeting will be held on Wednesday, June 4th, at 5:00 p.m. local time at Lansing Community College- West Campus, 5708 Cornerstone Drive, Room M119—Section 1, Lansing, Michigan, 48917.
The Texas Coastal Management Program public meeting will be held on Wednesday, June 4th, at 5:00 p.m. local time at Texas A&M University—Corpus Christi Natural Resources Center, 6300 Ocean Drive, Room 1003, Corpus Christi, Texas 78412.
ADDRESSES: Copies of each state’s most recent performance report, as well as OCRM’s evaluation notification letter to the state, are available upon request from OCRM. Written comments from interested parties regarding these programs are encouraged and will be accepted until June 6, 2014 for the Michigan Coastal Management Program and June 13, 2014 for the Massachusetts and Texas Coastal Management Programs. Please direct written comments to Carrie Hall, Evaluator, National Policy and Evaluation Division, Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management, NOS/NOAA, 1305 East-West Highway, 10th Floor, N/ORM7, Silver Spring, Maryland 20910, or Carrie.Hall@noaa.gov.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Carrie Hall, Evaluator, National Policy and Evaluation Division, Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management, NOS/NOAA, 1305 East- West Highway, 10th Floor, N/ORM7, Silver Spring, Maryland 20910, (301) 563–1135, or Carrie.Hall@noaa.gov.
(Federal Domestic Assistance Catalog 11.419 Coastal Zone Management Program Administration)
Dated: April 11, 2014. Christopher C. Cartwright, Associate Assistant Administrator for Management and CFO/CAO, Ocean Services, and Coastal Zone Management National, Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. [FR Doc. 2014–08723 Filed 4–16–14; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3510–08–P
DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
Patent and Trademark Office
[Docket No. PTO–P–2014–0024]
Notice of Forum on the Guidance For Determining Subject Matter Eligibility of Claims Reciting or Involving Laws of Nature, Natural Phenomena, and Natural Products
AGENCY: United States Patent and Trademark Office, Commerce. ACTION: Notice of public meeting.
SUMMARY: The United States Patent and Trademark Office (Office) is hosting a forum to receive public feedback from organizations and individuals on its guidance memorandum titled, ‘‘Guidance For Determining Subject Matter Eligibility of Claims Reciting or Involving Laws of Nature, Natural Phenomena, and Natural Products (Laws of Nature/Natural Products Guidance),’’ issued on March 4, 2014 and available at www.uspto.gov/patents/ announce/myriad-mayo.jsp. The Laws of Nature/Natural Products Guidance implemented a new procedure to address changes in the law relating to subject matter eligibility under 35 U.S.C. 101 in view of recent Supreme Court precedent. The forum will be open for any member of the public to participate. The forum will provide an opportunity for participants to present their interpretation of the impact of Supreme Court precedent on the complex legal and technical issues involved in subject matter eligibility analyses during patent examination. Participants who believe that the Supreme Court decisions could be implemented in an alternative manner from the approach taken in the Laws of Nature/Natural Products Guidance should use the forum to present their alternative approach and the legal rationale for the alternative. The forum also can be used by participants to suggest additional examples for use by the Office to create a more complete picture of the impact of Supreme Court precedent on subject matter eligibility.
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21737Federal Register / Vol. 79, No. 74 / Thursday, April 17, 2014 / Notices
1 569 U.S. __, 133 S. Ct. 2107, 106 USPQ2d 1972 (2013).
2 447 U.S. 303 (1980). 3 566 U.S. __, 132 S. Ct. 1289, 101 USPQ2d 1961
(2012). 4 333 U.S. 127 (1948).
DATES: Event: The forum will be held on May 9, 2014, beginning at 1:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT), and ending at 4:00 p.m. EDT.
Registration: Registration is required to attend the forum in person or via webcast. Additionally, members of the public who wish to participate in the forum as a speaker must do so by request in writing no later than April 25, 2014. See the ‘‘Registration Information’’ section of this notice for additional details on how to register. ADDRESSES: Event: The forum will be held in the Madison Auditorium North on the concourse level of the Madison Building, which is located at 600 Dulany Street, Alexandria, Virginia 22314.
Comments: Any member of the public, whether attending the forum or not, may submit written comments for consideration by the Office. There is no deadline for receipt of written comments. Persons submitting written comments should note that the Office will not necessarily provide a response. Written comments should be sent by electronic mail addressed to myriad- mayo_2014@uspto.gov. Comments also may be submitted by mail addressed to: Mail Stop Comments—Patents, Commissioner for Patents, P.O. Box 1450, Alexandria, VA 22313–1450, marked to the attention of Raul Tamayo. Although comments may be submitted by mail, the Office prefers to receive comments via the Internet.
Comments will be available via the Office’s Internet Web site at http:// www.uspto.gov/patents/announce/ myriad-mayo.jsp. Because comments will be available for public inspection, information that is not desired to be made public, such as an address or phone number, should not be included in the comments.
Event Registration Information: There is no fee to register for the forum, and registration will be on a first-come, first- served basis. Members of the public who would like to be considered to participate in the forum as a speaker must do so by request in writing no later than April 25, 2014. Registration on the day of the forum will be permitted for members of the public who wish solely to observe on a space-available basis beginning 30 minutes before the forum.
To register, please send an email message to myriad-mayo_2014@ uspto.gov and provide the following information: (1) Your name, title, and if applicable, company or organization, address, phone number, and email address; (2) whether you wish to attend in person or via webcast; and (3) if you wish to make an oral presentation at the
forum, the specific topic you intend to address, and the approximate desired length of your presentation. Each attendee, even if from the same organization, must register separately.
Due to time constraints, there is the potential that not all persons who wish to make a presentation will be accommodated. After reviewing the list of potential speakers and the information regarding the presentations provided in the registration, the Office plans to select speakers in a manner that ensures that the Office is receiving a balanced array of views. The Office will contact each selected speaker prior to the event with the amount of time available and the approximate time that the speaker’s presentation is scheduled to begin. The amount of time available for each presentation may be limited to ensure that all persons selected to speak will have a meaningful chance to do so. Speakers must send the final electronic copies of their presentations in Microsoft PowerPoint or Microsoft Word to myriad-mayo_2014@uspto.gov by April 25, 2014, so that the presentation can be displayed at the forum. If time permits, the Office will provide an opportunity for persons in the audience not previously selected as speakers to speak at the forum without a formal presentation.
The Office plans to make the forum available via webcast. Webcast information, as well as a list of forum participants and their associations, will be available on the Office’s Internet Web site before the forum at http:// www.uspto.gov/patents/announce/ myriad-mayo.jsp.
If special accommodations due to a disability are needed, please inform the contact person(s) identified below. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Requests for additional information regarding the forum should be directed to Raul Tamayo, Senior Legal Advisor, Office of Patent Legal Administration, by telephone at 571–272–7728, or by email to raul.tamayo@uspto.gov. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The Office issued the Laws of Nature/Natural Products Guidance on March 4, 2014 and made it available via the Office’s Internet Web site at http:// www.uspto.gov/patents/announce/ myriad-mayo.jsp. The Laws of Nature/ Natural Products Guidance states that it is for use in subject matter eligibility determinations of all claims (i.e., machine, composition, manufacture, and process claims) reciting or involving laws of nature/natural principles, natural phenomena, and/or natural products. The Laws of Nature/ Natural Products Guidance addresses
the impact of Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc.1 (Myriad) on the Supreme Court’s long- standing ‘‘rule against patents on naturally occurring things,’’ as expressed in its earlier precedent including Diamond v. Chakrabarty 2 (Chakrabarty), and Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Laboratories, Inc.3 (Mayo). Links to copies of these Supreme Court decisions, as well as a link to the Supreme Court’s decision in Funk Brothers Seed Co. v. Kalo Inoculant Co.,4 are available at http:// www.uspto.gov/patents/announce/ myriad-mayo.jsp.
Since releasing the Laws of Nature/ Natural Products Guidance, the Office has provided a first round of training for the examiners in Technology Centers (TCs) most likely to be impacted by the Laws of Nature/Natural Products Guidance (e.g., TC 1600 and 1700). The slides used to train the examiners are available at http://www.uspto.gov/ patents/announce/myriad-mayo.jsp. The Office is currently working on developing a second round of more in- depth examiner training. In addition, the Office established an email box (myriad-mayo_2014@uspto.gov) for members of the public to provide feedback on any aspect of the Laws of Nature/Natural Products Guidance rollout, including the Laws of Nature/ Natural Products Guidance document itself and the training slides.
The forum will provide a more direct opportunity for members of the public to present their interpretation of the impact of the Supreme Court’s decisions in, e.g., Myriad, Mayo, Chakrabarty, and Funk on the complex legal and technical issues involved in subject matter eligibility analyses during patent examination. The Office would like for members of the public who believe that the Supreme Court decisions could be implemented in an alternative manner from the approach taken in the Laws of Nature/Natural Products Guidance to use the forum to present their alternative approach and the legal rationale for the alternative. The forum also can be used by the public to suggest additional examples for use by the Office to create a more complete picture of the impact of Supreme Court precedent on subject matter eligibility. The Office will carefully consider all feedback it receives.
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21738 Federal Register / Vol. 79, No. 74 / Thursday, April 17, 2014 / Notices
Dated: April 11, 2014. Michelle K. Lee, Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Deputy Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office. [FR Doc. 2014–08759 Filed 4–16–14; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3510–16–P
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
Office of the Secretary
[Docket ID DoD–2012–HA–0145]
Proposed Collection; Comment Request
AGENCY: Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, DoD. ACTION: Notice.
SUMMARY: In compliance with Section 3506(c)(2)(A) of the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs announces a proposed public information collection and seeks public comment on the provisions thereof. Comments are invited on: (a) Whether the proposed collection of information is necessary for the proper performance of the functions of the agency, including whether the information shall have practical utility; (b) the accuracy of the agency’s estimate of the burden of the proposed information collection; (c) ways to enhance the quality, utility, and clarity of the information to be collected; and (d) ways to minimize the burden of the information collection on respondents, including through the use of automated collection techniques or other forms of information technology. DATES: Consideration will be given to all comments received by June 16, 2014. ADDRESSES: You may submit comments, identified by docket number and title, by any of the following methods:
• Federal eRulemaking Portal: http:// www.regulations.gov. Follow the instructions for submitting comments.
• Mail: Federal Docket Management System Office, 4800 Mark Center Drive, East Tower, Suite 02G09, Alexandria, VA 22350–3100.
Instructions: All submissions received must include the agency name, docket number and title for this Federal Register document. The general policy for comments and other submissions from members of the public is to make these submissions available for public viewing on the Internet at http:// www.regulations.gov as they are received without change, including any
personal identifiers or contact information.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: To request more information on this proposed information collection or to obtain a copy of the proposal and associated collection instruments, please write to the TRICARE Management Activity Program, Policy and Benefits Branch, ATTN: Mr. Mark Ellis, Defense Health Agency (DHA) 7700 Arlington Blvd., Suite 5101, Falls Church, VA 22042–5101, Phone: 703– 681–0063.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Title; Associated Form; and OMB
Number: Continued Health Care Benefit Program, DD Form 2837; OMB Control Number: 0720–TBD: Previously cleared under 0704–0364.
Needs and Uses: The continuing information collection requirement is necessary for individuals to apply for enrollment in the Continued Health Care Benefit Program (CHCBP). The CHCBP is a program of temporary health care benefit coverage that is made available to eligible individuals who lose health care coverage under the Military Health System (MHS).
Affected Public: Individuals or Households.
Annual Burden Hours: 625. Number of Respondents: 2500. Responses per Respondent: 1. Total Annual Responses: 2500. Average Burden per Response: 15
minutes. Frequency: On occasion. Respondents are individuals who are
or were beneficiaries of the Military Health System (MHS) and who desire to enroll in the CHCBP following their loss of eligibility or entitlement to health care coverage in the MHS. These beneficiaries include any person formerly eligible for care from the MHS according to Chapter 55 or Section 1145a of Title 10, United States Code. In order to be eligible for health care coverage under CHCBP, an individual must first enroll in CHCBP. DD Form 2837 is used as the information collection vehicle for that enrollment. The CHCBP is a legislatively mandated program and it is anticipated that the program will continue indefinitely. As such, the DoD is publishing this formal notice.
Dated: April 14, 2014. Aaron Siegel, Alternate OSD Federal Register, Liaison Officer, Department of Defense. [FR Doc. 2014–08718 Filed 4–16–14; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 5001–06–P
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
Office of the Secretary
Renewal of Department of Defense Federal Advisory Committees
AGENCY: Department of Defense (DoD). ACTION: Renewal of Federal Advisory Committee.
SUMMARY: The Department of Defense is publishing this notice to announce that it is renewing the charter for the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services (‘‘the Committee’’). FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Jim Freeman, Advisory Committee Management Officer for the Department of Defense, 703–692–5952. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: This committee’s charter is being renewed under the provisions of the Federal Advisory Committee Act of 1972 (5 U.S.C. Appendix, as amended), the Government in the Sunshine Act of 1976 (5 U.S.C. 552b) (‘‘the Sunshine Act’’), and 41 CFR 102–3.50(d).
The Committee is a discretionary Federal advisory committee that shall provide the Secretary of Defense, through the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness (USD(P&R)), independent advice and recommendations on matters and policies relating to women in the Armed Forces of the United States.
The Committee shall report to the Secretary of Defense and the Deputy Secretary of Defense through the USD(P&R). The USD(P&R) may act upon the Committee’s advice and recommendations.
The DoD, through the Office of the USD(P&R), shall provide support, as deemed necessary, for the Committee’s performance and functions, and shall ensure compliance with the requirements of the FACA, the Sunshine Act, governing Federal statutes and regulations, and established DoD policies and procedures.
The Committee shall be comprised of no more than 20 members who are appointed by the Secretary or the Deputy Secretary of Defense and who have experience with the military or with women’s workforce issues. The Secretary or Deputy Secretary of Defense shall select and appoint the Committee’s chair from the total membership. All Committee member appointments must be renewed by the Secretary or Deputy Secretary of Defense on an annual basis.
The Secretary or Deputy Secretary of Defense may appoint the Director of the Center for Women Veterans for the Department of Veterans Affairs to serve
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