Less than three weeks after wrapping up public comments to figure out where to plop down a new outreach office, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office picked Montana to replace an operation that has been in Denver since 2014.
The new space will be one of the “first of several” community engagement offices, described as “an agile model to meet innovators where they are,” according to an agency news release Monday. It will be housed at Montana State University in Bozeman and represent the eight-state region that includes Colorado, Idaho, Nebraska, North and South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming.
That territory was previously covered by the Rocky Mountain Regional Outreach Office in Denver, which the agency plans to permanently close in April. After the closure was announced Oct. 1, it asked the public where a new community outreach location should be located. Comments were closed on Nov. 28 — three weeks ago…