Political Quotes

“I just wanted to follow up a statement made by the chairman of the committee, and that deals with a portion of the bill that has not been discussed but which I think is extremely important as we talk about the publication at 18 months and the fact that the Patent Office tells us that currently the pendency, average pendency time for a patent in this country is 21 months. Obviously, more than the 18. However, under current law, funds intended for the PTO are being diverted to other purposes. Last year, $54 million in funding for the PTO was diverted from the PTO to other programs under the budget, and for fiscal year 1998 the President's proposed budget will divert $92 million of the user fees to other areas of the budget. If the PTO were allowed to keep those fees which H.R. 400 does allow, the time to process patents would be reduced dramatically and this whole discussion of whether publication at 18 months is problematic or not would be made moot.”