Socialist Black Muslim PresiPeckerhead Buckwheat's Failure - Do-Nothing DemocRATs Force U.S. patent office into shortfall, 770,000 backlogged applications
- From: Patriot Games <Patriot@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2009 08:45:47 -0400
http://mobile.reuters.com/mobile/m/FullArticle/CPOL/npoliticsNews_uUSTRE55M76820090623
U.S. patent office shortfall worsens: official
Tue, Jun 23 2009
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is facing
a growing shortfall that has forced it to ask Congress for rule
changes to help it weather economic hard times, a Commerce Department
official told Reuters on Tuesday.
The patent office, which supports itself by collecting fees to grant
and maintain patents, has seen its collections drop from $6.9 million
a day in January and February of this year to $6.2 million per day in
April and May, said Jay Reich, deputy chief of staff of the Commerce
Department.
Last week, collections totaled just $5.9 million a day, Reich told
Reuters.
Even before the financial crisis prompted companies to pare their
patent portfolios, which reduced the patent office's revenue, the
department was criticized for its large and growing backlog, which
Reich estimated at 770,000 applications.
The 6,285 patent examiners approve or reject about 450,000
applications each year, according to patent office figures.
The patent office had already cut $120 million from its budget this
year and identified another $20 million in potential savings from
reductions such as eliminating overtime pay, said Reich.
"Everything we can control, we have tried to reduce," said Reich. "The
Draconian move we want to avoid is furloughs."
President Barack Obama said last week he had chosen David Kappos to
run the patent office. Kappos is currently IBM's vice president and
assistant general counsel for intellectual property.
The patent office is contacting the congressional committees with
authorizing and appropriating power over it to solicit ideas for a fix
and ask for the right to temporarily tap at least part of a $60
million projected surplus held by the trademark side of the office and
to put about $10 million earmarked for special projects into the
general operating fund.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark has an annual budget of about $1.9
billion.
But Reich said the agency's surveys of patent attorneys and industries
found that the budget woes could worsen.
"They're not very bullish in terms of turning the situation around in
the near term," he added.
.
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