BNUMBER:  B-275423
DATE:  February 20, 1997
TITLE:  The Ensign-Bickford Company

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Matter of:The Ensign-Bickford Company

File:     B-275423

Date:February 20, 1997

Paul J. Seidman, Esq., and Robert D. Banfield, Esq., Seidman & 
Associates, for the protester.
Susan Spiegelman-Boyd, Esq., Department of the Navy, for the agency.
C. Douglas McArthur, Esq., and Christine S. Melody, Esq., Office of 
the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the 
decision.

DIGEST

1.  Nonreceipt of solicitation amendment provides no basis to sustain 
protest where  agency followed established procedures for 
disseminating amendments. 

2.  Protest of agency's addition to awardee's contract of the 
authorization and consent clause at Federal Acquisition Regulation  sec.  
52.227-1, allowing contractors to manufacture or use in performing the 
contract inventions covered by a United States patent, is denied where 
the protester does not allege that its quotation would have been 
different had the clause been included in the solicitation and 
accordingly there is no basis for finding that the protester was 
competitively prejudiced.

DECISION

The Ensign-Bickford Company (EBCo) protests the issuance of a purchase 
order to Shock Tube Systems, Inc. (STS) under request for quotations 
(RFQ) No. NOO164-96-Q-0299, issued by the Department of the Navy for 
detonators.
EBCo contends that the agency failed to provide it with a copy of an 
amendment and improperly agreed to the awardee's request to include in 
its contract a Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) provision 
regarding use of patents.

We deny the protest.

The agency issued the RFQ on May 2, 1996 as a 100-percent small 
business set-aside for six line items of detonators.[1]  On June 24, 
the Navy amended the RFQ to dissolve the set-aside.  The Navy issued a 
second amendment on August 22, which is at issue in this protest.  The 
record indicates that the purchasing agent prepared a version, which 
she faxed to five potential sources, adding CLINs 007-009 for three 
different  EBCo detonators, manufactured in accordance with the 
protester's drawings.  Because the first version incorrectly carried 
the number "-001," she prepared and issued a second version numbered 
"-002."  After reviewing the amendment, the agency's requiring 
technical activity advised her that the phrase "brand name or equal" 
should have appeared after the EBCo part number.  She again revised 
and issued the amendment.  EBCo states that it never received this 
version.[2]

The agency received two responses, one from the protester and one from 
the eventual awardee.  The awardee submitted a quote conditioned upon 
inclusion of the clause at FAR  sec.  52.227-1, Authorization and Consent, 
which permits a contractor to manufacture or use in the contract, 
without liability, inventions covered by a United States patent if the 
specifications require their use.[3]  On October 1, the agency issued 
a purchase order for four CLINs--001, 002, 007 and 008--to STS.[4]  On 
October 10, the agency issued a modification adding the FAR  sec.  52.227-1 
clause.  This protest by EBCo followed.

We find no basis for sustaining the protest.  First, a prospective 
bidder bears the risk of not receiving a solicitation amendment unless 
the record shows that the contracting agency made a deliberate effort 
to exclude the firm from competing or that the agency failed to follow 
reasonable established procedures for distribution of amendments.  Air 
Quality Experts, Inc., B-256444, June 15, 1994, 94-1 CPD  para.  374.  There 
is no evidence here that the agency made any deliberate effort to 
prevent EBCo from competing; indeed, the agency specified the 
protester's brand name parts.  Further, the record shows that the 
agency has a reasonable procedure in place to disseminate amendments 
to offerors and there is no evidence that the agency did not follow 
its procedures in transmitting the version of the amendment that EBCo 
did not receive.

In this regard, the purchasing agent states that, when issuing an 
amendment, she works from the list of prospective offerors to whom the 
solicitation was issued, preparing a gummed label with the telephone 
number for each firm's facsimile machine.  For each firm, she attaches 
a label to the amendment, submits it for transmission, and then 
receives the amendment back from the facsimile machine.  The 
purchasing agent states that, to the best of her recollection, she 
followed this process for all offerors.  In addition, agency telephone 
records reflect calls to the protester's facsimile machine on the date 
the revised version of the amendment was transmitted to the offerors.  
While the record provides no explanation for EBCo's nonreceipt of the 
amendment version in question, we cannot conclude, in light of the 
facts presented, that the agency does not have reasonable amendment 
dissemination procedures in place or that it failed to follow the 
procedures here.  Therefore, EBCo's failure to receive the amendment 
does not provide a basis for sustaining the protest.

As for the agency's decision to incorporate the FAR  sec.  52.227-1 clause 
into the contract.  EBCo complains that the addition of the clause 
made it easier for the awardee to compete.  We will not sustain a 
protest based upon a change or relaxation of a requirement for a 
competing vendor unless there is evidence of resulting prejudice to 
the protester, i.e., that the protester would have altered its 
proposal to its competitive advantage had it been given the 
opportunity to respond to the change.   Astro-Med, Inc.--Request for 
Recon., B-232131.2, Dec. 1, 1988, 88-2 CPD  para.  545.  EBCo does not 
assert that it would have changed its quotation had the agency 
included the FAR  sec.  52.227-1 clause in the RFQ.  Accordingly, 
notwithstanding what the awardee might have done had the clause not 
ultimately been incorporated, this record provides no basis to 
conclude that the protester was competitively prejudiced by what 
occurred here.

The protest is denied.

Comptroller General
of the United States

1. Contract line item numbers (CLIN) 001-003 were for dual lead 
detonators of 50-, 100-, and 500-foot length; CLINs 004-006 were for 
single lead detonators with 3.8-, 6.4-, and 9.6-second delays.

2. The purchasing agency subsequently learned that this third version, 
like the first, was incorrectly numbered "-001" and prepared a fourth 
version, with the correct number; this version was apparently not 
transmitted but was placed in the procurement file.

3. This provision is related to 28 U.S.C. 1498(a) (1994), which 
provides that, if the government consents to use of a patent in 
performance of a contract, the patent holder's recourse is against the 
government, not the contractor.  Diversified Technologies; Almon A. 
Johnson, Inc., B-236035, Nov. 6, 1989, 89-2 CPD  para.  427.

4. EBCo received an award for CLIN 0003; the other CLINs were 
canceled.