Posts Tagged: "pto budget"

TPAC Discussions Focus on Office Funding, Government Shutdown & Trademark Legislation

The Trademark Public Advisory Committee (TPAC) held its first quarterly meeting of 2019 on January 25… Despite the projection that without a long term solution to the government shutdown funding would run out by mid-April for Trademark Operations, USPTO Commissioner for Trademarks Mary Boney Denison said that the Office was still planning to proceed with hiring new trademark examiners… The first quarter of 2019 and last quarter of 2018 indicated a decline in filings for the first time since FY2010, which could mean that the USPTO’s projection that trademark filings will increase by 6.1% this year is incorrect… In discussing levels of TTAB filings, Rogers noted that the last few years had seen significant increases in the number of oppositions and petitions for cancelling trademarks coming in through the front door of the TTAB’s filing system. While appeals were increasing, they were being outpaced by oppositions and petitions to cancel.

Without Solution to Shutdown, PTO Patent Operations Funded until Mid-February

In a statement issued late Thursday afternoon, the United States Patent and Trademark Office announced that without a solution to the government shutdown the Office will soon run out of money. “In the absence of an appropriations bill, we have no authority to access fees collected since [the government shutdown] in accordance with the law,” read a notice posted to the USPTO.gov website late this afternoon. “Based on current estimates and expenditure rates, we expect our reserves to fund patent operations to last until at least the second week in February, and trademark operations to last until at least mid-April 2019.”

Trump nominates financial services inventor Margaret Weichert to serve as OMB’s deputy director of management

Margaret Weichert, Trump’s selection for deputy director of management at the OMB, is an inventor who has received “14 successful U.S. patents,” an indication that someone knowledgeable about patents and the U.S. patent system will have a role in shaping U.S. policy on the budget for the executive branch, including the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. As an inventor and entrepreneur, Weichert’s focus was squarely on financial networking and online transactions.

Is Trump being bamboozled by Obama holdovers on patent policy?

The USPTO’s Obama holdovers Michelle Lee and Tony Scardino are simply co-opting the exact language used in Obama’s budgets for fiscal years 2015 to 2017 into Trump’s 2018 budget and then directly attributing Obama’s policies and statements to President Trump even though Trump has never taken a position on anti-patent legislation… Are these failed Obama era policies now carried over into the Trump Administration by Obama holdovers simply mistakes? Some sort of scrivener’s error? Or is it a direct attempt to carry over failed Obama policies in the name of President Trump? You be the judge. Perhaps you can tell me: Is Trump being googled by Obama holdovers? Or is Trump himself the swamp?

USPTO gets $3.6 billion in President’s FY 2018 budget, avoids fee diversion

Under President Trump’s FY 2018 budget the USPTO will receive $3,586,193,000 from fees collected and to be available until expended. This appropriation would result in $0 being provided to the USPTO from the general fund of the United States. Any fees collected by the USPTO in excess of that amount would be deposited into the Patent and Trademark Fee Reserve Fund and remain available until expended. There does not appear to be any mention of any fee diversion anywhere, which would mean the USPTO has dodged the fee diversion hands of an often greedy federal government who over the last 30 years has frequently diverted user fees to other purposes.