PTO funding debate set to begin - fee diversion to reappear?

House appropriators saved the best funding bill for last.  Late last week, a House subcommittee set the final FY 2007 spending bill in motion by sending the Commerce-Justice-State (CJS) funding bill to the full Appropriations committee, which is set to consider and markup the bill on Tuesday, June 20th.  The President’s proposed CJS budget requests over $1.8 billion for the Patent and Trademark Office, an increase of over $150 million from the amount initially requested last year.

Aside from the overall funding request, the proposed budget includes several important provisions relating to the Patent and Trademark Office.  First and foremost…it gives the Office full access to the fees it collects from its customers during fiscal year 2007, up to the requested amount.  Also, it maintains the statutory changes made in 2005 that divided filing fees into separate filing, search and examination fees.  The bill also grants the Director authority to reduce filing fees by regulation for documents filed electronically and removes the current ban on payment of travel expenses for Office employees by Office customers.

Several issues relating to the Patent and Trademark Office could receive attention as the CJS bill winds its way through the appropriations process, the hottest of which, of course, is fee diversion.  Will the appropriators grant the President’s request that the Office have access to all of the fees it collects?  Or will the PTO cash cow prove too tempting to pass up for other purposes?

Tuesday’s markup could begin to shed light on these questions.