Short Term Pain for Long Term Gain: Why Congress Should Stop Diverting U.S. Patent and Trademark Office User Fees

June 14, 2011

As Congress considers passage of significant patent reform legislation, “The America Invents Act,” ACS is pleased to distribute Short Term Pain for Long Term Gain: Why Congress Should Stop Diverting U.S. Patent and Trademark Office User Fees, an Issue Brief by Marla Page Grossman, a Partner at the American Continental Group, Inc., and former counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee. In this Issue Brief, Ms. Grossman describes and critiques US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) fee diversion, which involves the federal government taking user fees (fees paid by users of the patent and trade system and collected by the USPTO) and allocating them for uses other than the functioning of the USPTO. The author argues that fee diversion has made the patent system less efficient and more costly, along with undermining the pro-technology and pro-innovation rhetoric of our nation’s leaders. Ms. Grossman concludes with her view that:"USPTO fee diversion must stop, and must be stopped now, to ensure that the USPTO can engage in the stable, long-term planning necessary for the issuance of timely, high-quality patents . . . . But good policies often come with painful politics. If Congress can handle a little pain in the short term, the nation will likely be rewarded with a more efficient USPTO and national prosperity over the long term."

Read the full Issue Brief here: Short Term Pain for Long Term Gain: Why Congress Should Stop Diverting U.S. Patent and Trademark Office User Fees