USPTO eyes unified communication system

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office wants information on unified Internet Protocol communication systems that could reduce the agency's current communication system's operating costs through the convergence, consolidation and decommission of some legacy technologies, according to a recent notice.

USPTO is conducting the market research on potential products and companies that could design, develop and deploy a unified IP communication system, according to the request for information (RFI) published on the Federal Business Opportunities Web site.

Along with reducing the operating costs of the agency’s current communication system, the unified system would allow employees to communicate with each other in a distributed workforce environment, according to the RFI. The system would also provide conferencing tools for teleworkers, the notice said.

According to the notice, the unified system would be able to deal with:

• Different videoconferencing scenarios.
• Virtual employee assistance.
• Virtual conferences.
• Distance learning.
• Peer-to-peer collaboration in which people can seamlessly move from different forms of communication.
• Electronic team rooms that let people collaborate with tools such as messaging, blogs and wikis.
• The integration of all forms of communication such as e-mail, instant messaging and audio.
• A solution that would allow a panel of judges to meet and collaborate.
  

Interested companies must respond with a capabilities statement and references by Sept. 15.