35 U.S.C. § 5 — Patent and Trademark Office Public Advisory Committees

(a) Establishment of Public Advisory Committees. (1) Appointment. The Patent and Trademark Office must have a Patent Public Advisory Committee and a Trademark Public Advisory Committee, each with nine voting members appointed by, and serving at the pleasure of, the Secretary of Commerce. Each year, three new members join each committee for 3-year terms starting December 1. Any vacancy must be filled within 90 days, and a member appointed to fill a vacancy serves out the rest of that term. (2) Chair. The Secretary of Commerce, consulting the Director, names a Chair and Vice Chair for each committee from its members. If the Chair resigns early or cannot act, the Vice Chair takes over the Chair's duties. (b) Basis for Appointments. Members of each committee must be U.S. citizens chosen to represent the different users of the Office — patent users for the Patent committee, trademark users for the Trademark committee. Membership must include small and large applicants in proportion to how many applications each group files, but small-entity patent applicants (small businesses, independent inventors, and nonprofits) must make up at least 25% of the Patent Committee, including at least one independent inventor. Members must also include people with strong backgrounds in finance, management, labor relations, science, technology, and office automation. Each committee also includes a nonvoting representative from each labor organization the Office recognizes. (c) Meetings. Each committee meets when its chair calls a meeting, on an agenda the chair sets. (d) Duties. Each committee must: (1) review the Office's policies, goals, performance, budget, and user fees in its area (patents or trademarks) and advise the Director; and (2) within 60 days after each fiscal year ends, write an annual report on those matters, send it to the Secretary of Commerce, the President, and the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, and publish it in the Office's Official Gazette. (e) Compensation. Each member is paid, for each day (including travel time) spent on committee meetings or business, at the daily rate for Executive Schedule level III pay. Members are also reimbursed for travel expenses, including per diem, while away from home, under section 5703 of title 5. (f) Access to Information. Members get access to Office records and information, except for personnel or other privileged information, and except for confidential patent-application information protected under section 122. (g) Applicability of Certain Ethics Laws. Committee members count as "special Government employees" under section 202 of title 18. (h) Inapplicability of Chapter 10 of Title 5. The advisory-committee rules in chapter 10 of title 5 do not apply to these committees. (i) Open Meetings. Committee meetings are open to the public, except that a committee may vote, by majority, to meet privately when discussing personnel matters or privileged or confidential information. (j) Inapplicability of Patent Prohibition. Section 4's ban on Office employees getting patents does not apply to voting members of these Advisory Committees.