Operation of the Patent and Trademark Office

6/08/2001

THE HOUSE JUDICIARY SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE COURTS AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

NTEU represents more than 2,700 employees in two bargaining units at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO). These Patent and Trademark Office employees play a critical role in the development of new industries in our economy. PTO's employees perform the quasi-judicial function of adjudicating patent and trademark applications. The American public and business community place great importance on the registration of patents and trademarks in the United States as a key to the protection of valuable intellectual property rights.

PTO continues to receive an increasing number of patent and trademark applications and these applications are ones of increasing complexity. Agency management and the American public are very fortunate to have the young, progressive and innovative workforce represented in NTEU's bargaining units. They are extremely computer literate, professionally savvy and open to new ideas.

However, PTO is grossly understaffed for the growing workload it bears. Pendency for applications is at unacceptable levels. Turnover is at a magnitude that robs PTO of experienced workers and lengthens pendency because of the resources that must be diverted to new employee training.

Congress must often grapple with difficult problems with no readily apparent solution. The issue at PTO is NOT one of those situations. The solution is obvious. PTO collects fees from its customers to pay the cost of processing their applications. If these fees were fully retained by the agency, it would have sufficient resources to make the agency run the right way and have the staff it needs to do its job. This is not a matter of using taxpayer dollars to run PTO. It is using the fees paid by applicants, who have clearly expressed their willingness to pay these fees if they can have their trademark and patent applications processed in a proper and timely fashion.

Unfortunately, rather than make attempts to resolve these problems, the Administration's proposed budget makes matters worse. The Department of Commerce's PTO FY 2002 budget request has $207 million in fee collected revenue transferred to the General Fund and cut staff by 700 positions. We find this an inappropriate use of user fees and something that is severely damaging to the operations of PTO. This rightful and needed revenue should be used to give PTO customers better service, to meet the growing challenges of the Office and to hire the additional staff that is so needed to handle both the backlog of applications and the continuing increases. The $207 million raid on PTO is unprecedented. Never before has this amount of money been taken away from the agency. This must stop and it must stop this year.

The impact of the Administration=s budget is clear. Trademark applications would climb from 6.6 months to 8.0 months for first action and from 19 months to 20 months for final resolution. Patent pendency would go from 26.2 months to 26.7 months. Customer satisfaction at PTO would decrease 6%.

The founding fathers of our nation directed the federal government "to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries" (Article I, ' 8, The Constitution of the United States). Congress has the obligation to take this constitutionally mandated duty seriously by providing the needed resources to protect the inventions and trademarks of American business and inventors. Diverting funds paid by these business and inventors to other, unrelated purposes while the agency is forced to make massive cutbacks in staff and reduce pendency is simply wrong.

NTEU believes that no fees collected for patent and trademark applications should be diverted for other purposes and that PTO should be given an appropriation that reflects this. We believe both Representative Berman=s H. Res. 110 and Chairman Coble's HR 2047 would be useful steps in that direction. I hope NTEU can count on the Judiciary Committee's support on this important issue.