I don’t think “Ponziesque” in quotes is to say it is a Ponzi scheme, which is why I am guessing he used “Ponziesque” and not “Ponzi scheme.” There is, however, no doubt that the money paid today is used to fund Office operations, which entail examining application filed years ago. So for those applications that get filed today to have an Office open for business in the future, at a time when they are first in line for examining, there will need to be some funds present for the running of the Office. Those funds can either be provided by new applicants, as now, or by Congress actually appropriately funding the Patent Office.

From what I have been told by others, somewhere between 50% to 70% of the PTO budget comes from the payment of maintenance fees. In some respects that may seem worse than a Ponzi scheme and akin to extortion. Of course, another way to look at it is that it is a tax on continued benefit of an exclusive right and encouragement to allow non-economically viable patents from remaining outside the public domain longer than necessary.

I wouldn’t read too much into the label, and would encourage you and others to focus on the message. The message is that the PTO is not appropriately funded (what I would say) or the PTO funding is fragile and dictated by filing patterns the Office cannot control (at least directly) as was found out during the first 7 months of 2009.

-Gene

It’s so illogical to me that fees paid by you today to file a patent application are spent on examining a patent application that was filed three years ago and you hope that someone comes along three years from now and files an application and pays money to the PTO so that your application that was filed today [and you paid for today] can be examined three years from now. It’s kind of like a “Ponzi [scheme]

Did we hear right? Is Godici accusing the PTO of running a Ponzi scheme?

[T]he center of the patent world is not the PTO. The center of the patent world is innovation [and the inventors who innovate].

Perhaps we should start listing some quotable quotes out of this Quinn/Godoci exchange?

(Gene, it would help if you attached an incrementing dialog number each time each speaker starts talking. This way it is easier to read the lengthy piece in parts rather than having to do it all in one sitting.)

Amen.