Wednesday, April 18, 2012

U.S. Patent & Trademark Office in peril - The Business Review (Albany):

takes-trendsthe.blogspot.com
Current government fees for filingy a trademarkare $325 per class of goodsx or services. Corporations with fewer than 500 employeewpay $345 for each patent application filed plus a $605 fee when the application is allowed. Larger corporations pay twice Althoughthe USPTO's 2001 revenue is projected to be $1.2 patent and trademark dockets are backlogged. On it takes USPTO examinerss 4.5 months to first responds to a trademark applicatioh and just less than a year to firsy respond to apatent application. Nevertheless, Presidentt Clinton has dealt a drastic blow to the futurse of our intellectual property which is largely responsible for the tremendous growtnof U.S.
technology businesses. Clinton's budget request called for $113 million in paid by the patent ortrademark applicant, to be divertede to other federal projectas unrelated to intellectual property. This amounts to nothin g more than a tax on the already stressefd intellectual property machinery drivingour Furthermore, appropriators chose to siphon $182 million more from the USPTO revenue, includingy an estimated $48 million in FY 2001 funds that were not take n into account in the initial forecast. The resuly is that the USPTO will be forced to operate with 25 percenr less than the total fees paid by customers to procesxs their applications for patentsand trademarks.
USPTO Commissionefr Q. Todd Dickinson estimates that delay s in processing patents and trademarks willincreases significantly, taking eight months for a response to a trademarj application and nearly 16 monthsa for a response to a patentf application. More than 1,000 stafg members will not be hired or including more than 600 patent examinerswand trademark-examining lawyers. Furthermore, public onlinse databases, which enable free accessz to a wealthof information, would suffer dramatically. Antoh Hopen is a registered U.S. patent lawyert and partner in the Clearwater, Fla.-basedx law firm Smith & Hopen.

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