From the USPTO press release:
“The American Library Association (ALA) recently selected the Department of Commerce’s United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Web site as one of the MARS Best Free Reference Web Sites of 2003. MARS is the ALA’s Machine-Assisted Reference Section of the Reference and User Services Association, and represents the interests of those concerned with attaining the highest possible quality in planning, developing, managing, teaching or conducting all forms of computer-based reference information services in libraries.”