The latest Federal fiscal compromise (H.R. 1473) removes $100,000,000 from the Patent and Trademark Office budget. Since the USPTO is totally self-supporting, that amount of collected user fees will now be diverted to other areas of government. It appears that our representatives in Washington DC are using the USPTO as a cash cow to subsidize other government activities. We find this troublesome.
This diversion of funds already appears to have changed Patent Office operations: One example is that the expedited patent prosecution program, recently reported in this blog, is now on hold. This program would have created an opportunity for inventors to expedite their application’s prosecution by paying an additional $4,000 in filing fees to the Patent Office. Why is the Patent Office cancelling a program that would generate more revenue? Because the Patent Office would not get to keep that extra revenue, but would have some modest costs associated with the program. So our Washington representatives have inadvertently killed a revenue generating program that would be useful for many inventors in the name of fiscal responsibility.
Sometimes we do not understand the thinking of those in Washington. This is one of those times.
