BioCentury
ARTICLE | Politics, Policy & Law

Shaking the pig

November 12, 2001 8:00 AM UTC

Congress and the White House have been treating the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) as a piggy bank for years, siphoning off cash from the user fees charged for reviewing patent and trademark applications.

Over the last four years Congress has withheld an average of $100 million a year. The fiscal 2002 budget proposed by President Bush withholds $207 million and projects that an average of $184 million will be skimmed from PTO user fees every year through FY2006. ...