Obama grants USPTO additional funding
The US Patent and Trademark Office has been granted additional funding by President Barack Obama.
The US Patent and Trademark Office (USTPO) will attempt to shorten patent pendency and reduce patent backlogs with additional funding granted by President Barack Obama.
The USPTO Supplemental Appropriations Act 2010 was signed by the president in early August. It authorises the USPTO to spend an additional $129 million of the fees the agency will collect during the 2010 financial year. The USPTO predicts that it will collect approximately $200 million more than the $1.887 billion allocated to it by Congress.
On July 12, President Obama asked Congress to allow the USPTO access to all the fees it would collect during the 2010 financial year. Despite the new allocation, approximately $70 million more in fees will be collected than the USPTO is allowed to spend.
David Kappos, director of the USPTO, said: “This additional funding will allow us to continue the progress we’ve made in improving the USPTO and the patent process so that patents can be issued more quickly, investment in new technology and new products will be accelerated, and much-needed jobs will be created.”
The USPTO recently released a draft of its Fiscal Year 2010-2015 Strategic Plan for public comment. The plan outlines the agency’s aims to improve the quality and timeliness of its patents. It states:
“The USPTO must identify and implement the efficiencies, tools and policies necessary to increase the number of applications it is capable of examining and disposing of (rejection or issuance), while improving quality. The USPTO has identified a twofold basis to attack the capacity challenge: increase examiner capacity and improve efficiency.”
