UTBMS Code Set Presentations

The UTBMS Task Force will be meeting Monday, April 17, at 2:00 pm central time in the Illinois Boardroom of the Sheraton Hotel in Downtown Chicago, 301 E. North Water Street. The meeting will include

• Results of UTBMS Survey (Jeff Hodge)
• Revised International Working Group Report (Jeff Hodge)
• Patent Code Set Presentation (Bill Heinze and Domenic Leo)
• Trademark Code Set (Domenic Leo)
• Status of Other Working Groups
• LEDES "Legal Electronic Data Exchange Standard" Oversight Committee Merger (Brad Blickstein)

For those of you who can attend in person, the meeting will take place For those of you who cannot attend in person, here is the call in information:

US Callers: 800-914-3397
Int'l Callers: 617-475-0114
Access Code (all callers): 8279421

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.

Please feel free to contact me or Domenic Leo for additional information, including a copy of the I/P codes sets that are currently before the I/P WorkGroup.