CIO Leaves USPTO: At a time when intellectual-property issues promise to be a sensitive and hotly contested for years to come among software users and vendors, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is losing its IT chief. Douglas Bourgeois, who has been CIO at the agency for more than three years, announced Monday that he has accepted an offer to become director of the Department of Interior's National Business Center. Bourgeois, whose last day with the Patent Office is Sept. 3, leaves an organization dealing with a business environment that increasingly places a high priority on defending intellectual property. Over the past few years Bourgeois has led the Patent E-Government initiative, which provides online access to the full-text database of more than 3 million patents and published applications using the Electronic Filing System or traditional paper filing.