Home Media Center News Releases

Washington, D.C. — The leader of nation’s largest independent federal employee union called on the U.S. Senate to maintain its position and end the troubling practice of fee diversion from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) after the House approved ineffective language that fails to end the practice of surcharging companies seeking to market their products.

“The Senate must step forward to permanently end fee diversion at PTO, which would assure proper and dependable funding for the agency,” said President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU). “By allowing PTO to manage its own fees, American inventors and businesses can be confident that they will be able market their products in a timely manner, which will only aid our nation’s economic recovery. Instead, the House has voted to continue to make patent and trademark applicants pay a surcharge on top of the fee needed to process their applications. Why, in a troubled economy, the House would make companies pay more to bring products to market and create jobs is beyond me.”

By passing H.R. 1249, the America Invents Act, last night, the House approved substantial changes to language that would have ended fee diversion at PTO. In its place, House negotiators installed little more than a promise to consider giving PTO access to collected fees.

PTO is a fee-funded agency to which applicants pay either a trademark application fee or a patent application fee. While PTO is subject to the congressional appropriations process, the separate fees for each principal function finance the operation of that process. The original language in H.R. 1249, which remains in the Senate version of the bill, gives PTO the ability to set appropriate fees, and ensures that none of the applicant fee monies are diverted to other government use.

NTEU represents more than 150,000 employees in 31 agencies and departments, including nearly 1,700 at PTO.