Patent & Trademark Office, Information Technology Contracts Office, Box 14, Washington, DC 20231

R -- SYSTEMS ENGINEERING AND TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE (SETA) SOL 52-PBPT-7-00001 DUE 031197 POC Sylvia Van Dyke, Contract Specialist, PH: 703-305-4165, James H. Murphy, Contracting Officer, PH:703-305-4176, FAX 703-308-5042 WEB: Patent & Trademark Office, http://www.uspto.gov). For. The Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) has a continuing requirement for Systems Engineering and Technical Assistance (SETA) services for independent, objective, and expert technical advice and assistance for ongoing and future information technology initiatives. This requirement is to provide an unbiased third party to evaluate current and future technology, review Government contractor's plans, performance, and products, provide independent technical advice on existing and new PTO automated systems, define or review high level information technology architecture and support engineering projects and tasks for enhancing the PTO information infrastructure. The contractor must provide the following capabilities: systems and network engineering, functional and technical requirements definition, refinement, and analyses; simulation modeling, strategic and tactical planning assistance; integration contractor product and performance evaluation; advice and assistance; integration contractor product and performance evaluation; advice and assistance on issues related to acquisition planning, solicitation, and evaluation; proof of concept prototyping, technology assessments, proposed alternatives and solutions that will provide better engineering practices. The PTO would like to emphasize that the winning offeror of the SETA requirement will have a role as a close confidential advisor to the PTO. The SETA contractor will assist the PTO in evaluating the proposals, performance, and products of other contractors, thereby giving them access to proprietary information about potential competitors. The SETA contractor will also have access to proprietary, source-selection sensitive, or otherwise restricted information. Because of the close confidential relationship required of the SETA contractor, the PTO is concerned that this will cause other private sector firms to be reluctant in pursuing future work with the PTO, and that the release of proprietary information to the SETA contractor would have an adverse impact on competition in future procurements with the PTO. In order to mitigate these concerns, the PTO intends to impose strong Conflict of Interest (COI) restrictions on the SETA contractor. These COI restrictions include the prohibition of the winning offeror, its parent, any of its affiliates, subsidiaries, or successors in interest, consultants, and subcontractors from participating (in any capacity) in any PTO procurements, other than those activities in direct support of the SETA contract, throughout the duration of the SETA contract (including options) plus an additional five years. The SETA contractor, its parent, any of its affiliates, subsidiaries, or successors in interest, consultants, and subcontractors will be prohibited from using any proprietary information obtained in support of the SETA contract for the duration of the SETA contract (including options) plus an additional five years or until the information becomes part of the public domain, whichever comes latest. The SETA contractor will be required to certify annually that it, its parent, any affiliates, subsidaries, or successors in interest, consultants, and subcontractors are in compliance with the PTO COI requirements. The PTO will require a minimum of 10 percent of the estimated value of the contract to be provided to small businesses subcontracts. The anticipated contract type is a cost-plus-fixed fee and task oriented. The annual level of effort anticipated is 150,000 -- 200,000 hours. The PTO intends to issue a contract for one (1) year with four (4), one (1) year options to renew. The PTO estimates the contract value to be $71 million. Approximate issue date is the end of March 1997, with responses due in 30 days. Requests for solicitation packages by interested parties should be made in writing; Reference RFP No. 52-PBPT-7-00001 to include name of company or individual, point of contact, address, and phone number. Interested parties may obtain copies by several methods. Official Hard Copies: To obtain either an electronic copy using high density 3 1/2" diskettes, or a paper copy, please submit a written request to the Contract Office, specifying your perference (Limit 1 copy of either diskette or paper). Requests may be faxed to the contracting office at PH: 703-308-5042. Unofficial Electronic Copies: An electronic copy of the solicitation will be available as follows: World Wide Web Access -- An electronic copy can be viewed and/or downloaded via Internet (ftp to ftp.uspto.gov) or the World Wide Web Access (http://www.uspto.gov). For purposes of bidding, it is the vendor's responsibility to ensure that they obtain and respond to an official copy of the RFP. Official copies of the documents are available in paper or on diskette when requested from the Information Technology Contracts Office, either in writing, or by completing the bidder's request form found in the PTO Internet Web site. This acquisition will be conducted using streamlined measures to include portions which will be presented orally by the offeror. Details will be contained in the solicitation package. Address for written requests for the solicitation package is as follows: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Information Technology Contracts Office, Box 14, Washington, DC 20231. Questions may be directed to Sylvia Van Dyke at PH: 703-305-4165. (0038)

Loren Data Corp. http://www.ld.com (SYN# 0087 19970211\R-0023.SOL)