Financial:
- USPTO budget for FY2010 limited by Congress to $1.887 billion dollars. Projected collections for FY2010 is expected to be $200 million over that limitation. Under the current law, all of that money will be sent to congress. Congress has already allocated $100 million of that overage on other non-patent items. Thus, to get that money back at this point, Congress would need to take $100 million from another source.
- Budget for FY2011 — requested budget of $2.3 billion that includes a bump for significant technology upgrades at the Office.
Backlog:
- In January 2009, PTO had about 765k unexamined utility patent applications. That number is now down to about 735k. The PTO is pushing a 699k campaign to drive the number of unexamined cases under 700,000 this year.
- The PTO has made 62 new “experienced” hires this FY.
