UTBMS I/P Workgroup Initiative Needs Your Help

The I/P Working Group of the UTBMS Update Initiative (at http://www.utbms.com) is looking for volunteers to help develop a standard set of patent, trademark, and copyright billing code sets for adoption as part of the American Bar Association's Uniform Task-Based Management System (or "UTBMS").

The UTBMS is a budgeting and billing system designed to provide clients and law firms with meaningful cost information on legal services. It currently includes a Litigation Code Set that was released in 1995 and has since been widely adpoted for contested matters, including judicial litigation, binding arbitration and regulatory/administrative proceedings. More-recently, the ABA has also released Counseling, Project, and Bankruptcy Code Sets. However, the ABA's Steering Committee concluded that "it would not be practicable to develop practice-specific task codes."

This has led various consumers of intellectual property services to adopt inconsistent and/or proprietary code sets that have frustrated consumers and service providers alike. The UTBMS Intellectual Property Workgroup has therefore been charged with building upon those legacy code sets in order to develope a baseline model code set for patent, trademark, and copyright services.

We invite you to join this effort by volunteering to serve on one oy our patent, trademark, and copyright subcommittees. Our next telephone conference meeting is set for Friday, September 2, 2005, at 10:00 am. To attend, just send a short e-mail message to I/P WorkGroup Chair Domenic Leo at domenic.leo@datacert.com with your subcommitee choice. Though we have received support from firms with significant interests in the IP community, participation by you and your firm would help us insure that this initiative is a successful one.

And, as always, please feel free to contact me for additional information, including a copy of the legacy I/P codes sets that are currently before the I/P WorkGroup.