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The United StateS Patentand Trademark Office (USPtO),a performance-based federal

government agency, is funded bythe fees charged for filing patentapplications and trademark regis-trations. Its mission is to administerthe laws and regulations related topatents and trademarks in order topromote industrial and technical

progress in the United States, andthereby strengthen the domesticand global economies. The USPTOcarries out its mission by examiningpatent and trademark applications,issuing patents and registeringtrademarks, disseminating patent

and trademark information to thepublic, and encouraging a domesticand international climate in whichintellectual property can flourish.

The USPTO comprises nearly13,000 employees, plus an esti-mated 2,000 contractor supportpersonnel. Its main campus islocated in Alexandria, Virginia, andconsists of eight buildings housedon approximately 2.5 millionsquare feet of office space. Theagency also has four regionaloffices located in Detroit, Denver,Dallas and San Jose. It maintainsmore than 115,000 assets—includ-ing IT and AV equipment, photo-copiers, hubs, iPads, printers,routers, servers and televisions—atits various locations.

The agency falls under theDepartment of Commerce (DOC),which requires all bureaus andoffices to inventory assets annu-ally. To meet the DOC’s mandate ontime, the USPTO conducted inven-tory counts four times annually.Property accountability officers(PAOs) and property custodians(PCs), including senior-level execu-

rfidjournal.com | Feb. 13, 2017

U.S. Patent and TrademarkOffice Tracks IT AssetsThe federal agency tagged more than 115,000 items to improveinventory efficiencies and reduce costs.By Lauren S. Roman

The U.S. Patent and Trademark isheadquartered in Alexandria, Va.

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RFID Journal: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Tracks IT Assets

tives and GS 14- and 15-levelemployees, were responsible forconducting the counts. Some of thePCs are also patent and trademarkexaminers who review applica-tions. These employees spentroughly 7,700 hours a year manag-ing assets rather than reviewingrevenue-generating applications.The USPTO also found that, on aver-age, a patent and trademark exam-iner often spent up to six hoursevery year verifying equipment.

Tom King, who works in theOffice of Administrative Services(OAS), is responsible, along withVickie Bryant, for overseeing theChief Administrative Office’s (CAO)property- and asset-managementprograms at the USPTO. King andBryant were both aware of how time-consuming the asset-inventoryprocess was, and of the impact on theagency’s mission. They knew therehad to be a more efficient way, andthus reached out to Wes Clark, fromthe Office of the Chief InformationOfficer (OCIO), to discuss ideas.

“By and large,” King says, “mostgovernment agencies considerasset management to be secondarycompared to their main mission.

We saw that automating the loca-tion and movement of our assetswith RFID technology would allowus to spend more time fulfillingUSPTO’s main goals.”

In September 2016, the USPTOdeployed an RFID asset-trackingsolution. The system monitorsmore than 115,000 IT assets at mul-tiple locations and spans more than160 floors where nearly 15,000 fed-eral employees and contractorswork. The expected return oninvestment for the $2.8 millionproject is 18 months, King says.

Investigating andPlanningin 2014, Clark, Bryant and kingbegan to investigate RFID to deter-mine whether the technology couldbe put to work to address the

USPTO’s inventory problems. Kinghad read an article about Walmart’suse of RFID to track inventory. Hecalled asset managers at other gov-ernment agencies and learned thatthe U.S. House of Representativeswas using the technology in con-junction with Remedy (now BMCSoftware) enterprise-resource plan-ning (ERP) software, which the

USPTO also employed. The Housewas RFID-tracking its treasure-trove of historic furniture, and Kingfigured that since furniture is anasset, the system the House wasusing would work to monitor theUSPTO’s assets.

King, Clark and John Hassett,who was the director of OAS at thattime, decided to pay the House ofRepresentatives a visit. The Houseproperty managers showed themhow they were using RFID to quicklyverify furniture location informa-tion contained in their ERP. “Welearned that the technology behindRFID isn’t complicated or hard toimplement,” Clark says, “but it rep-resents a new way of thinking aboutasset management, and how to lettechnology do the grunt work.

The USPTO received budgetapproval from the Office ofManagement & Budget. In July

2014, the USPTO notified the indefi-nite delivery/indefinite quantity(IDIQ) contract holders that itneeded quotes for an RFID-basedasset-tracking solution.

q Wes Clark

“We learned that thetechnology behind RFIDisn’t complicated or hardto implement.”

The USPTO deployment usesMetalcraft Universal RFID Asset tagsdesigned to work on metal, plasticand wood surfaces.

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RFID Journal: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Tracks IT Assets

Digital Technologies Inc. (DTI),an IDIQ contract holder, had beenproviding IT infrastructure, man-agement and support services to theUSPTO for many years. A websearch brought DTI to Evanhoe andAssociates, an RFID systems inte-grator in Dayton, Ohio. DTI learnedabout Evanhoe’s work with the fed-eral government, including anRTLS-based asset-tracking solutionfor the U.S. Air Force that they wereupdating and managing at the time.DTI partnered with Evanhoe on theproposal, and the company wasawarded the contract.

The first step for such an expan-sive project was to develop a project-management plan. All work had to

be coordinated and scheduled withKing and Bryant, who was the con-tracting officer’s technical represen-tative for the USPTO. The projectwas divided into four phases: sitesurveys and cost estimates, choos-ing tags and testing software offsite,installing hardware and taggingassets at the Alexandria Campus andthen rolling out the solution at theother USPTO locations.

Site surveys were conductedfrom late October 2015 throughFebruary 2016, in order to identifyexisting RF environmental factorsand any business-process issuesthat would drive the need for spe-cific equipment and tags. Noextraordinary challenges were dis-covered, says Chuck Evanhoe, thecompany’s founder. DTI andEvanhoe presented costs estimatesfor implementing the RFID solutionat each location.

Developing andDeploying dti and evanhOe selected Metal -craft Universal RFID Asset tags,which are designed to work onmetal, plastic and wood surfaces.The passive ultrahigh-frequency

RFID tag has a read range of 15 to 27feet, depending on the material towhich it is affixed. Laptops and othermobile assets required read rangesof 17 feet. DTI and Evanhoe alsodeveloped a guide for the supportpersonnel who would tag all theUSPTO assets. IT support contractorscompleted the nationwide asset-tag-ging project within 90 days.

All told, 440 Impinj SpeedwayRevolution R220 and R440 fixedreaders were installed in hallwaysand doorways, as well as at emer-gency exits. Location determina-tions were based on the site surveysand the USPTO’s business require-ment to track assets as they movefrom one floor to another and intoand out of buildings. The R220reader has two antenna ports, whilethe R440 comes with four ports; intotal, more than 1,100 antennas wereinstalled to support the system.

Speedway xPortal R640 readerswere installed at the base of publicstairways to detect floor-to-floormovement. The devices were cho-sen because they are estheticallypleasing, King says. Impinj xArray

Impinj Speedway xPortal R640readers were installed at the base ofpublic stair ways, because they areesthetically pleasing.

Each month, Alien TechnologyALH-9001 handheld readers are usedto verify asset locations.

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RFID Journal: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Tracks IT Assets

R680 readers were used at buildingentrances and security check-points, where wide-area monitor-ing was required. In addition, 10Alien Technology ALH-9001 hand-held readers were purchased to sup-port inventorying.

The software platform is anenterprise-level application thatresides on the USPTO’s networkservers. The system can be readilyintegrated with the Remedy ERP,capturing data from tag reads andproviding real-time visibility intoassets’ locations. According to King,the user interface was simple anddirect, and the fact that it could beseamlessly integrated with theexisting system was key.

DTI and Evanhoe provided train-ing for two Office of AdministrativeServices asset managers (who haveadministrative rights) and for fourinventory support team members(who would monitor assets’ loca-tions and report if assets were lost,missing or stolen). Other workerscan access general IT asset financialdata, as well as warranty, mainte-nance and surplus information, viathe Remedy ERP system.

There were few major obstaclesin deploying the system, Kingrecalls, though working throughthe USPTO’s network, firewall andsecurity requirements proved cum-bersome at times.

Using andBenefittingBefOre the rfid SOlUtiOn wasimplemented, field technicians hadto manually update asset-locationinformation when they movedequipment and assigned it to aproperty custodian. Currently, asassets travel around the USPTO’s

facilities, the RFID system automat-ically monitors their movements.In the future, the system will alsotrack assignments to property cus-todians. All the information is auto-matically updated in the ERP soft-

ware. The result is a significantreduction in the number of errors.

On the last business day of eachmonth, workers use handheldreaders to verify each asset’s loca-tion, then update this informationin the ERP system. “The handheldscan read hundreds of tags in a mat-ter of seconds,” King says, “so itreally isn’t a major deal.” Everymonth, the system produces areport on any assets not “seen”(read) within the previous 30 days.Knowing where the last reportedlocation was and who removed theasset, he explains, allows for quickaction and resolution.

The USPTO examiners are backto work reviewing patent and trade-mark applications and driving rev-enue, rather than chasing missingassets and conducting inventories.

By the end of fiscal year 2017, the

USPTO expects asset-managementhours to be cut in half, from roughly7,700 to 3,850. By end of fiscal year2018, the number should be closerto 800 hours annually. “Any dili-gent asset-management processrequires constant involvementfrom staff,” Clark states, “butautomating the process with RFIDrequires far less of it.”

“With automated asset trackingand management,” King adds, “wecan spend less time thinking aboutwhere things are and more timeplanning for future requirements.”

Next up, the USPTO would like torequire some vendors that supplynew equipment to RFID-tag assetsbefore shipping them to a USPTOlocation. Laptops, monitors andprinters used by employees work-ing remotely were not tagged ini-tially, but will be as they are serv-iced or replaced

“I think over the next year ortwo,” King says, “we may very wellsee the use of RFID expand oncefolks see how successful we’vebecome in achieving our goals.”

Lauren S. Roman is the manag-ing director of TransparentPlanet,which provides AIDC companieswith new strategies for promotingand growing their businesses.

q Tom King

“We may very well see theuse of RFID expand oncefolks see how successfulwe’ve become inachieving our goals.”

For more information,please contact:

Evanhoe & Associates, Inc.5089 Norman Blvd.Dayton, OH 45431tel: 937-235-2995email: contact.us@evanhoe.com