81 FR 61196 - USPTO Cancer Moonshot Challenge

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
Patent and Trademark Office

Federal Register Volume 81, Issue 172 (September 6, 2016)

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) publishes this notice to announce the Cancer Moonshot Challenge, which was launched on August 22, 2016, to enlist the public's help to leverage the USPTO's intellectual property data, often an early indicator of meaningful research and development, and combine it with other economic and funding data. This challenge supports the goals and objectives of the National Cancer Moonshot, a Presidential initiative to speed up cancer advances, make more therapies available to more patients, and improve the ability to prevent cancer and detect it at an early stage. This notice provides the public with information on participation and application requirements for the challenge, including the judging criteria, submission requirements, and rules of eligibility.

[Federal Register Volume 81, Number 172 (Tuesday, September 6, 2016)]
[Notices]
[Pages 61196-61198]
From the Federal Register Online  [www.thefederalregister.org]
[FR Doc No: 2016-21349]


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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

Patent and Trademark Office

[Docket No. PTO-C-2016-0032]


USPTO Cancer Moonshot Challenge

AGENCY: United States Patent and Trademark Office, Commerce.

ACTION: Notice.

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SUMMARY: The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) 
publishes this notice to announce the Cancer Moonshot Challenge, which 
was launched on August 22, 2016, to enlist the public's help to 
leverage the USPTO's intellectual property data, often an early 
indicator of meaningful research and development, and combine it with 
other economic and funding data. This challenge supports the goals and 
objectives of the National Cancer Moonshot, a Presidential initiative 
to speed up cancer advances, make more therapies available to more 
patients, and improve the ability to prevent cancer and detect it at an 
early stage. This notice provides the public with information on 
participation and application requirements for the challenge, including 
the judging criteria, submission requirements, and rules of 
eligibility.

DATES: Challenge Deadline: The deadline for submissions is September 
12, 2016, 5:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST).

ADDRESSES: All individuals or entities who wish to participate in the 
challenge must register and submit their entry through 
www.challenge.gov.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For further information, please 
contact Thomas A. Beach, Office of the Under Secretary and Director, at 
571-272-8600.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

I. About the Challenge

Background

    Cancer is undoubtedly a disease that touches all our lives. Ending 
cancer as we know it requires the formation of new alliances. As 
President Obama noted, getting this done isn't just going to take the 
best and brightest across the medical, research, and data communities--
but millions of Americans owning a stake of it. By harnessing the power 
of patent data and accelerating the process for protecting the 
intellectual property that leads to cancer immunotherapy breakthroughs, 
the USPTO is standing up and doing its part to help bring potentially 
life-saving treatments to patients, faster.

The Challenge

    With data released through the USPTO Developer Hub, users are 
building rich visualizations of intellectual property data, an early 
indicator of meaningful innovation and research and development (R&D), 
and combining this data with other state or agency data, such as census 
and bureau of labor statistics, and/or economic and financial data. 
These types of visualizations demonstrate the power of telling complex 
stories that lead to impactful insights and ask why the data matters. 
Similarly, we challenge you to create and illuminate new trend lines 
and interactive mappings of innovation with visualizations for all 
types of cancer treatments and diagnostics by combining our data with 
other unique data. Be sure to list the sources of your data sets (i.e., 
orange book data from the FDA), tools, and assumptions used to form 
your conclusion and visualizations. Imagine your data visualizations 
will be the foundation to empower the Federal Government--as well as 
the medical, research, and data communities--to make more precise 
funding and policy decisions based on the commercialization lifecycle 
of the most promising treatments, while maximizing U.S. competitiveness 
in cancer investments.
    Using analytic tools, processes, and other interoperable data sets, 
we are challenging you to develop interactive visualizations and 
stories that can help

[[Page 61197]]

reveal new insights to guide public policy and research to achieve the 
goal of doubling the rate of progress toward a cure. For example, you 
could address questions such as:
    Trending:
     What new insights can be revealed by correlating R&D 
spending/funding to breakthrough technologies? How would you define or 
cluster the broad spectrum of cancer treatments, therapies, and/or 
diagnostics?
     What would trace studies of commercially successful 
treatments from patent to product tell us? What data insights can be 
gleaned from understanding the time it takes bring patents to patients?
     What are the peaks and valleys in the landscape of cancer 
treatment technologies?
    Policy:
     If you were the Director of NIH or another agency, given 
what you have learned from this patent data and your research, how 
would you prioritize your cancer research budget? (The National Cancer 
Institute's FY2014 budget was $4.932 billion.)
     Based on cluster mapping of cancer treatments, therapies, 
and/or diagnostics, what policy would you put in place to promote 
certain technologies? For example, would you promote treatment to make 
cancer a livable disease verses curing it?
     Is there any measurable relationship between patent data, 
clinical trial data, and time to it takes for the technology to be in 
the hands of the patient? If so, how (and with what catalyst for 
innovation and policy changes) would you advise the VPOTUS for the 
Cancer Moonshot?

Resources

    The USTPO has released a curated data set consisting of 269,353 
patent documents (published patent applications and granted patents) 
spanning the 1976 to 2016 period. This data and associated 
documentation explaining our methodology can be found on the USPTO 
Developer Hub.

Prizes

First Place: $5,000.00
Second Place: $3,000.00
Third Place: $2,000.00

More Information About the Cancer Moonshot Initiative

    As the President's Cancer Moonshot Initiative looks to build 
public-private partnerships with industry, governments, health systems, 
non-profits, philanthropy, research institutes, patients, and academia, 
those interested in advancing the Cancer Moonshot can join today by 
visiting www.whitehouse.gov/CancerMoonshot.

II. Judging Criteria

 Creativity & Innovation (20%)
    [cir] Uniqueness and innovation in approach to revealing new 
insights to guide public policy and research.
    [cir] Concept should be original, fill a gap, or answer a question 
in a manner that is not already available.
 Evidence Base & Effectiveness (20%)
    [cir] Provide meaningful insight, including potential actions and 
discoveries, using patent-related data to better inform funding and 
policy decisions or uncover insights into the cancer R&D process.
    [cir] How did you arrive at and validate your story? Did you 
include additional complimentary datasets to help solidify your story? 
What additional knowledge sources did you use?
 Value to Public (20%)
    [cir] Concept should add value to the medical, research, or data 
communities and policymakers, allowing them to make more informed 
funding and policy decisions based on the patterns and trends of 
innovation in cancer diagnosis and treatment.
 Usability (20%)
    [cir] The design elements should attract, engage, and influence 
actions from the public and policymakers.
 Functional Product (20%)
    [cir] The visualization should have demonstrable functionality as 
described in project description.

III. How To Enter

    By September 12, 2016, 5:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, submit the 
following items through www.challenge.gov:
     A story (maximum 1,000 words). Written in English, tell 
the story of your visualization and walk users through how to use your 
visualization. The document must describe how your visualization 
provides meaningful insight, including potential actions and/or 
discoveries.
     Access to and testing instructions for your submission. 
This can be appended to your visualization description and does not 
count toward the 1,000 word maximum.
     Link to the submission. We will not accept any submission 
without a link.

IV. Rules

    To be eligible to win a prize under this challenge, an individual 
or entity:
    (1) Shall have registered to participate in the competition under 
the rules promulgated by the USPTO.
    (2) Shall have complied with all the requirements under this 
section.
    (3) In the case of a private entity, shall be incorporated in and 
maintain a primary place of business in the United States; in the case 
of an individual, whether participating singly or in a group, shall be 
a citizen or permanent resident of the United States.
    (4) Shall not be a federal entity or federal employee acting within 
the scope of their employment.
    (5) Shall not be a USPTO employee working on their applications or 
submissions during assigned duty hours.
    (6) In the case of a federal grantee, shall not use federal funds 
to develop applications unless consistent with the purpose of their 
grant award.
    (7) In the case of a federal contractor, shall not use federal 
funds from a contract to develop applications or to fund efforts in 
support of a challenge submission.
    An individual or entity shall not be deemed ineligible because the 
individual or entity used federal facilities or consulted with federal 
employees during a competition if the facilities and employees are made 
equitably available to all individuals and entities participating in 
the competition.
    Entrants must agree to assume any and all risks and waive claims 
against the Federal Government and its related entities, except in the 
case of willful misconduct, for any injury, death, damage, or loss of 
property, revenue, or profits, whether direct, indirect, or 
consequential, arising from their participation in this prize contest, 
whether the injury, death, damage, or loss arises through negligence or 
otherwise.
    Entrants must also agree to indemnify the Federal Government 
against third-party claims for damages arising from or related to 
competition activities. By entering into this competition, entrants 
represent that the they possess liability insurance or are otherwise 
financially responsible for: (1) Claims by a third party for death, 
bodily injury, or property damage, or loss resulting from an activity 
carried out in connection with participation in the competition, with 
the Federal Government named as an additional insured under the 
Entrant's insurance policy, if any; and (2) claims by the Federal 
Government for damage or loss to government property resulting from 
such an activity.

[[Page 61198]]

    By submitting an entry to this competition you represent and 
warrant that your submission:

 Is your own work and not copied (if we have reason to believe 
that your submission is not your own work then we may not consider it);
 does not contain any third party intellectual property rights 
and/or content that you do not have permission to use; and
 is not obscene, defamatory, or in breach of any applicable 
legislation or regulations.

    The USPTO reserves the right to cancel, suspend, and/or modify the 
challenge, or any part of it, for any reason, at the USPTO's sole 
discretion.

Submission Requirements

     Your submission must use at least the cancer research 
dataset provided by the USPTO.
     Your submission must be relevant to a U.S. audience and 
must be in the English language only.
     You are responsible for the cost and expense (if any) of 
sending your submission to us and, if your submission is selected, 
either attending an awards event demo at the USPTO on September 26, 
2016, in person or submitting a video of your presentation to be shared 
at the event.
     Only one project submission is permitted per person or 
group. In the event of a dispute over the identity of an entrant, the 
submission will be deemed submitted by the authorized account holder of 
the email address submitted during the registration process.
    Submissions that do not adhere to the requirements listed above 
will be automatically disqualified.

Intellectual Property

    Ownership of intellectual property is determined by the following:
     Each entrant retains title and full ownership in and to 
their submission. Entrants expressly reserve all intellectual property 
rights not expressly granted under the challenge agreement.
     By participating in the challenge, each entrant hereby 
irrevocably grants to sponsor and administrator a limited, non-
exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license and right to reproduce, 
publicly perform, publicly display, and use the submission to the 
extent necessary to administer the challenge, and to publicly perform 
and publicly display the submission, including, without limitation, for 
advertising and promotional purposes relating to the challenge.
     All entrants are encouraged to open source their code to 
the extent possible as a continuing contribution to cancer research.

    Dated: August 31, 2016.
Michelle K. Lee,
Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of 
the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
[FR Doc. 2016-21349 Filed 9-2-16; 8:45 am]
 BILLING CODE 3510-16-P