On Friday September 29, 2017, the House Budget Committee issued a 63-page, non-binding budget plan named, Building a Better America: A Plan for a Fiscal Responsibility. One of the proposed items in the proposal is the transformation of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) into an independent agency.
Although not descriptive, the proposal states, “[t]his budget recommends the following dissolution, delegation of authority, and consolidation measures… Establish the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office as an independent agency.” See p. 50 of the Proposal. While no specifics related to the suggested change were provided in the proposal, the document did state “[t]he Department of Commerce and its various agencies and programs are rife with waste, abuse, and duplication.”
Q. Todd Dickinson, former Director of the USPTO, is in favor of the change. Dickinson stated, “[t]his is a very good idea, making it similar to NASA or the GSA. This was basically the intent of the American Inventor Protection Act back in 1999.” He believes there will be a lot of advantages to this, one of which being the USPTO could potentially separate itself from the problem of fee diversion. The separation could also avoid the “shared services” requirement within the Department of Commerce (DOC). “Shared services” have been a point of contention with many in the USPTO as they are paying for services the agency does not and will not use.
According to the USPTO’s website they are “the federal agency for granting U.S. patents and registering trademarks. The USPTO advises the president of the United States, the secretary of commerce, and U.S. government agencies on intellectual property (IP) policy, protection, and enforcement; and promotes the stronger and more effective IP protection around the world. The USPTO furthers effective IP protection for U.S. innovators and entrepreneurs worldwide by working with other agencies to secure strong IP provisions in free trade and other international agreements.”
Suiter Swantz IP is a full-service intellectual property law firm, based in Omaha, NE, serving all of Nebraska, Iowa and South Dakota. If you have any intellectual property questions or need assistance with any patent, trademark, or copyright matters and would like to speak to one of our patent attorneys please contact us.