No. 38
STANDARD REFERENCE DATA ACT
CLAIMS BY THE U.S. GOVERNMENT:
REGISTRATION WITHOUT A FEE
The Standard Reference Data Act, Public Law 90-396 (15 U.S.C. 290), provides that the Secretary of Commerce may secure copyright and renewal thereof on behalf of the United States as author or proprietor in standard reference data prepared or made available under the Act.
This Office has concluded that the registration fee will be waived for works submitted in accordance with the Standard Reference Data Act.
In registering works under the Standard Reference Data Act without a registration fee two annotations should be made on both the application and the certificate.
The first annotation involves placing an asterisk at both lines 1 and 3, generally. The asterisk should be placed at both lines 1 and 3 of the application and certificate to indicate that registration of the claim is authorized on the basis of the Standard Reference Data Act, even though the Government is the proprietor and author, and the asterisk should be keyed to the comment in the annotation box. If the Government is the proprietor, but not the author, the asterisk should be placed at line 1 only.
Example:
*Claim registered under the Standard Reference Data Act, P.L. 90-396 (15 U.S.C. 290). (Cert.)
The statement on the certificate would read:
*Claim registered under the Standard Reference Data Act, P.L. 90-396 (15 U.S.C. 290).
