Political Quotes

“Madam President, I rise today in support of Senator Coburn's amendment to prevent the diversion of patent and trademark fees to other purposes. I am pleased to be a cosponsor of this amendment. I believe this amendment is critical for this bill to have the innovation-encouraging, job-creating effects that its proponents say it will. Prior to 1990, taxpayers supported the operations of the Patent and Trademark Office, or PTO. In 1990, this was changed through a 69 percent user fee ``surcharge,'' so that the PTO became funded entirely through fees paid by its users, the American inventors who seek to protect the genius of their inventions from those who would copy these innovations for their own profit. In short order, Congress began using the funds that inventors paid to protect their inventions for other purposes. In 1992, $8.1 million in user fees were diverted. In 1993, $12.3 million was diverted. In 1994, $14.7 million. And so it continued, escalating every year, until what started as a trickle became a flood in 1998, with $200.3 million in PTO user fees diverted. All told, since 1992, an estimated $886 million in fees that were paid for the efficient and effective operation of the Patent and Trademark Office have been diverted to other uses, according to the Intellectual Property Owners Association. Meanwhile, at the same time that these fees were being taken away, the length of time that it takes to get a patent out of the Patent Office has steadily increased.…”