computer resources and fully exploit the potential of computer technology for the benefit of man and the welfare of the Nation.

The relocation of NBS headquarters from Washington, D.C., to a spacious and protectively zoned site near Gaithersburg, Maryland, enabled the Bureau to enlarge its capacity to fulfill these and many other functions with the aid of the most up-to-date and

The Patent and Trademark Office

The Patent and Trademark Office is the bureau of the Department of Commerce which provides patent and trademark protection to inventors and businesses for their inventions and corporate and product identifications. Through the preservation, classification, and dissemination of patent information, the Patent Office aids and encourages innovation and the scientific and technical advancement of American industry.

It examines applications and grants patents on inventions when applicants are entitled to them, publishes and disseminates patent information, records assignments of patents, maintains search files of U.S. and foreign patents for public use, and supplies copies of patents and official records to the public. Similar functions are performed relating to trademarks. (Copyrights are the responsibility of the Copyright Office of the Library of Congress.)

Granting of patents to inventors to prevent others from making, using, or selling their inventions for a limited time is based upon a provision of the

effective scientific facilities. A turnkey ceremony in 1969 marked the opening of the Fluid Mechanics Laboratory, the 20th and last of the primary laboratory structures blueprinted for the new headquarters when the farmland site was purchased some 14 years earlier.

Among the specialized NBS facilities now in use are a 100-Mev linear electron accelerator with a beam of

Constitution which envisioned this reward as the incentive it has become to our citizens to use their inventive talents. The trademark system is based upon later legislation.

Through the granting of patents, the Patent and Trademark Office has accumulated the world's largest collection of applied technical information. This information has been growing at an accelerating rate ever since 1790, when the Patent System was created. There are now more than 4 million U.S. patents and more than 9 million foreign patents on file. More than 70,000 new patents are granted annually. In addition to patents on devices, compositions, and processes, these include patents on new ornamental designs of manufacture and new varieties of plants.

The Patent and Trademark Office has a system of classification in which

up to 65 kilowatts; a 10 megawatt highflux reactor with a unique coldneutron facility; a 1-million-pound dead-weight machine; and an Environmental Engineering Laboratory, incorporating a full-size "house" which under artificially created climatic conditions contributes to understanding of performance problems such as heat loss through walls, roofs, and foundations.

the patents are divided into classes and subclasses of subject matter, covering all items from the simple to the complex-from hairpins to electronic computing devices. This system permits any individual to locate and examine all existing patents in any field of technology. The Patent Office Search Room at Crystal Plaza, 2021 Jefferson Davis Highway, Arlington Virginia, is open to the public.

The Patent Official Gazette, published weekly, describes patents issued by the Patent and Trademark Office.

General Information Concerning Patents serves as a guide for the filing of a patent application and an introduction to the subject of patents and the workings of the Patent and Trademark Office. A similar publication, General Information Concerning Trademarks concerns the application for and the registration of trademarks, expressed in non-technical language for the layman. Patents are instrumental in industrial research-important not only to individuals but to all technological progress. This collection of technical data can yield solutions and save valuable research dollars.

One-time inventor Abraham Lincoln said "The Patent System added the fuel of interest to the fire of genius." The fire ignited many years ago is still flaming.

Electronic communications systems represent the nerve system of modern society.

The Office of Telecommunications is responsible for supporting this vital segment of the national economy in three essential ways.

First, the Office of Telecommunications performs scientific and engineering research on the technical aspects of telecommunications to provide a sound base of technological information upon which its work in frequency management and policy analysis must rest.

Second, it serves as a comprehensive source of factual, analytic information on the many policy issues in telecommunications, performing analytical studies that can help develop Administration policies and viewpoints.

Third, it assists in keeping Federal radio and radar services on the air and working smoothly so that the people of this country will have the benefits of defense, of transportation, of public safety-all the public services that depend at least in part on telecommunications.

The principal research and engineering facility of the Office is the Institute for Telecommunication Sciences located in Boulder, Colorado. In addition to the research performed for the Office, the Institute conducts programs for other government departments and agencies on a cost reimbursable basis.

National Technical Information Service

The National Technical Information Service of the U.S. Department of Commerce is the central source for the public sale of government-sponsored research, development and engineering reports and other analyses prepared by Federal agencies, their contractors or grantees, or by special technology groups. NTIS also is a central source for Federally generated machine processable data files.

NTIS ships 11,500 information products daily as one of the world's leading processors of specialty information. It supplies its customers with about four million documents and microforms annually. The NTIS information collection exceeds 800,000 titles, all available for sale. About 100,000 titles are in current shelf stock.

NTIS is obligated by the U.S. Code

to recover its cost from sales. The distribution of its information products and services is self-sustaining.

Timely and continuous reporting to subscribers is ensured by agreements between NTIS and hundreds of Federal research-sponsoring organizations and special technology groups.

Customers may quickly locate summaries of interest from among the 400,000 Federally sponsored research reports completed and published from 1964 to date, using the agency's on-line computer search service (NTISearch). About 60,000 new reports are added annually. An additional 180,000 descriptions of ongoing and recently terminated research projects, compiled by the Smithsonian Science Information Exchange, also are computer-retrievable. Copies of the whole research reports are sold by NTIS in paper or microfiche.

The NTIS Bibliographic Data File (on magnetic tape) includes unpublished research summaries and is available for lease. The computer products of other Federal agencies also are sold or leased by NTIS.

Current summaries of new research reports and other specialized information in various categories of interest are published in 24 weekly newsletters. An all-inclusive biweekly journal is published for librarians, technical information specialists and those requiring all the summaries in a single volume with an accompanying index.

A standing order microfiche service automatically provides subscribers with the full texts of research reports, selected to satisfy individual requirements.

Additional services, such as the coordination, packaging and marketing of unusual information for organizations, may be specially designed.

HE Maritime Administration, an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce since 1950, is charged with developing and maintaining a U.S.flag merchant marine capable of meeting this Nation's waterborne foreign and domestic shipping requirements in times of peace and providing logistical support to the Armed Forces in times of national emergencies.

In the two decades following World War II, the American merchant fleet was diminished by steady erosion and growing obsolescence. Enactment of the Merchant Marine Act of 1970 is reversing this decline in America's maritime affairs.

The Act provided the Maritime Administration with its most significant legislation in over 30 years, including a far-reaching 10-year shipbuilding and research and development (R&D) program to add high-technology ships. to the fleet while decreasing the level of Federal subsidies.

All segments of the U.S. flag fleet engaged in foreign trade are now eligible to receive Federal assistance to reduce ship construction and operating

costs to the levels of their lower cost foreign competitors.

Applicants, considered on the basis of experience, financial qualifications and proposed trade route service, are approved by the Maritime Subsidy Board, subject to review by the Secretary of Commerce.

Subsidized operators agree to replace obsolete vessels with new ships of advanced design, built in U.S. shipyards, and provide service in U.S. foreign trade. In times of national emergencies, the operators make their vessels available to the Government as naval auxiliaries.

The Maritime Administration also administers tax-deferred capital construction funds and the Federal ship financing guarantee program. These programs aid American flag lines engaged in domestic and foreign trade in the financing of new ship construction.

The scope of the Maritime Administration's research and development activities was enlarged and redirected under the 1970 Act by emphasizing programs to produce practical technological advances within three to five

years. Major R&D programs concentrate on developing advanced ship designs, performing shipping systems analyses, improving vessel operations, and preventing ship-generated pollution. The National Maritime Research Center at Kings Point, New York, conducts basic and applied research and operates the Computer-Aided Operations Research Facility (CAORF), the world's most advanced maritime operations simulator.

The agency also assists Americanflag operators in improving their marketing efforts, primarily by providing them with comprehensive statistically detailed cargo flow data. This information helps operators to identify new markets and pinpoint areas where American-flag lines are under-utilized by shippers. Marketing representatives in nine major cities administer a nation-wide program beamed at importers, exporters and freight forwarders to acquaint them with the services and urge their patronage of U.S.-flag ships.

The Maritime Administration operates the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point, New York, where qualified applicants are trained to become merchant marine deck or engineering officers. As part of the agency's continuing efforts to insure equal opportunities for all citizens, the Academy admitted women as officer candidates for the first time in 1974, thereby becoming the first and only Federal service academy to discard restrictive "male only" admission policies. The daily routine for all plebes includes an occasional inspection called by upperclassmen (left). The agency also supervises government grants, loans, and scholarships provided to the six State maritime academies which are located in Maine, New York, Massachusetts, California, Texas, and Michigan.

OHE United States leads all major

in per capita deaths and property loss from fire.

The Federal Fire Prevention and Control Act of 1974, in an effort to reduce those losses, created the National Fire Prevention and Control Administration under the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Established October 29, 1974, the National Fire Administration has as its mission the reduction, by half, of the United States fire losses. It assists, supplements, and helps expand the Nation's fire prevention and control efforts through four program areas: the National Academy for Fire Prevention and Control, the National Fire Data Center, the National Fire Safety and Research Office, and the Public Education Office. The agency also works in close liaison with the Center for Fire Research at the National Bureau of Standards.

The Administration concentrates on accelerated research and development into fire and fire-related problems; improved professional fire training and education; establishment of a national system for collecting, analyzing, and disseminating fire data to State and local authorities; improved public fire safety education; and reviewing fire and building codes and fire safety of buildings, with a thrust toward planning for fire prevention and control.

Marjorie Webster Junior College campus in Washington, D.C. was selected and approved as the NFPCA's training facility, the National Fire Academy.

The courses to be offered at the Academy emphasize the management and fire prevention aspects of the fire service. Courses will be offered in instructor training, fire service manage

ment, fire investigation and arson detection, fire safety building design, fire protection management and administration, and other areas of concern.

Reliable data on the existing fire problem is essential. The National Fire Data Center operates a computerized center for the collection, analysis, and dissemination of information related to the prevention, occurrence, control, and results of all types of fire. The Data Center also maintains a library and reference service for access to this information.

The Center is working with the states in developing a National Fire Incident Reporting Systems that will work uniformally for the collection of accurate fire data on a nationwide basis.

Planning, research, and technology are needed to achieve a significant drop in fire-caused deaths, injuries, property damage loss, and the economic cost of fire to the country. This is the job of the National Fire Safety and Research Office. Its principal work falls into three categories: improving local fire protection, firefighters' protective clothing, and residential fire protection.

Emphasis has been placed on the "master planning" concept of improving local community fire prevention and control. Systematic master plans for urban areas, small communities, and rural areas that can be adapted to answer the local fire problem questions have been compiled by this office.

The Public Education Office is charged with developing tested and successful public fire education programs that can be used at the local level.

The Public Education Office, under its Resource Exchange Program, cohosted regional conferences to aid in the dissemination of programs in such areas as home fire safety inspection, burns treatment, preschool education, and youthful firesetting.

Extensive smoke detector research was conducted, and an ongoing program designed to provide information to the fire services community, to enable the local fire service personnel to develop campaigns on smoke detector information for local residents.

The Center for Fire Research, part of the National Bureau of Standards, performs and supports research on all aspects of fire, ranging from the physics and chemistry of combustion to the psychological and motivational characteristics of arsonists. Fire research programs of the Center come under the umbrella of the National Fire Administration.

Upon request, the Administration assists the Consumer Product Safety Commission in the development of fire safety standards or codes for consumer products.

The National Fire Prevention and Control Administration is also authorized to reimburse fire services for the fighting fires on Federal property.

OR a variety of reasons, minority FOR Americans have traditionally been

excluded from business participation, or have been involved in small-scale operations with limited markets. The first census of minority-owned businesses showed that in 1969 America's 35 million minorities (17 percent of the population) controlled only four percent of the Nation's business enterprises and gross receipts from their firms accounted for less than one percent of total U. S. business receipts.

In recognition of the need to increase minority participation in American business, the Office of Minority Business Enterprise (OMBE) was created by Presidential executive order in 1969 and placed under the responsibility of the Secretary of Commerce.

OMBE is the key Federal agency set up to provide management and technical assistance to minority business owners. It serves as a national clearinghouse to coordinate and direct the resources of other Federal agencies as well as state and local governments in support of minority business development. It works closely with business executives in the private sector and with trade and professional groups to promote industry support for minority firms.

OMBE has six fully staffed regional offices located in New York City, Washington, D. C., Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas and San Francisco. It has smaller field offices in 11 other cities.

The regional offices manage a network of 275 local business assistance centers. By visiting one of these centers, the minority owner can get assistance in preparing a business loan package, securing sales, or solving a particular management problem. If the owner needs technical help be

yond the expertise of center staff, OMBE can call on a volunteer or, in some cases, a professional consultant.

Specialized assistance centers work exclusively with minority construction contractors and other OMBE organizations work primarily with Indian entrepreneurs. Since OMBE pays the operating costs of the centers, the service is provided free to the minority entrepreneur.

At its Washington, D. C. headquarters, OMBE develops and monitors national minority business programs and initiatives. The National Minority Purchasing Council, composed of executives from over 1,000 major corporations, works to increase corporate purchase of supplies and services from minority firms.

OMBE encourages private companies, universities, church groups, economic development agencies and individuals to support minority firms through privately capitalized Minority Enterprise Small Business Investment Companies (MESBICS). For every $1 of private money invested in a MESBIC, the Government will invest up to $3 in the MESBIC which it in turn can loan to minority firms. MESBIC loans are usually in the form of equity investments or long-term financing and often go to minority

owners who could not get financing elsewhere.

The Interagency Council on Minority Business Enterprise, chaired by the Under Secretary of Commerce, coordinates Federal programs in support of minority business. Through 1976, its efforts have resulted in a six-fold increase in the total of Federal financial support for minority firms and Government purchases from minority firms since the creation of OMBE.

The OMBE technology commercialization program provides for the transfer of commercially profitable products ог processes developed through space research to minority firms for production and sales. Through a cooperative arrangement with several public and private organizations, OMBE provides minority firms technical, marketing and financial support. OMBE conducts experimental and demonstration projects to gather data