Patent Office Budget Cuts Could Hurt Small Inventors

By Rodney Ho

Wall Street Journal

97/02/18, p. B2

Budget cuts at the Patent Office could hurt small inventors.

Inventors may see longer delays in patent approvals if a spending cut the Clinton administration proposes in its next budget survives. The Patent and Trademark Office says the proposed cut would force it to freeze all hiring of new patent examiners, even though patent applications are growing at about a 10% annual rate.

Hoping to make the PTO self-sufficient, Congress six years ago raised fees to applicant and patent owners 69%. Congress takes the extra money and reapportions part of it back to the PTO. Last year, Congress took away $54 million out of $115 million in surplus funds.

For the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 1998, the administration wants to divert $92 million out of $119 million in projected PTO surcharge income. A spokesman for the White House's Office of Management and Budget says, "In the context of balancing the budget, we don't think this is an excessive contribution."

In addition, Congress could always take the remaining $27 million, says the American Intellectual Law Association, which is protesting the proposal. The $119 million projected surplus equals about 18% of the patent-examining budget.

Congress arranges for the PTO to be self-sufficient by earning its own money, "then has the gall to take it away," says Joanne Hayes-Rines, president of the United Inventors Association of the USA, which represents small-inventors' organizations.

Robert Lougher, a consumer advocate for the Inventors Awareness Group in Westfield, Mass., says he fears the PTO also may be forced to raise fees again to maintain services. "They are literally pricing small inventors out of the market-place," he alleges. "To big companies, it's just the price of doing business."

It currently costs small inventors $1,050 in fees to get the most common type of patent and another $3,075 over a 20-year period to keep it active, according to the PTO.