[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 112 (Wednesday, July 28, 2010)]
[House]
[Pages H6251-H6253]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS 
                               ACT, 2010

  Mr. MOLLOHAN. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the 
bill (H.R. 5874) making supplemental appropriations for the United 
States Patent and Trademark Office for the fiscal year ending September 
30, 2010, and for other purposes.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  The text of the bill is as follows:

                               H.R. 5874

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the 
     following sums are appropriated, out of any money in the 
     Treasury not otherwise appropriated for the fiscal year 
     ending September 30, 2010, and for other purposes, namely:

                         DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

               United States Patent and Trademark Office

       For an additional amount for ``Salaries and Expenses'' of 
     the United States Patent and Trademark Office, $129,000,000, 
     to remain available until expended: Provided, That the sum 
     herein appropriated from the general fund shall be reduced as 
     offsetting collections assessed and collected pursuant to 15 
     U.S.C. 1113 and 35 U.S.C. 41 and 376 are received during 
     fiscal year 2010, so as to result in a fiscal year 2010 
     appropriation from the general fund estimated at $0: Provided 
     further, That during fiscal year 2010, should the total 
     amount of offsetting fee collections be less than 
     $2,016,000,000, this amount shall be reduced accordingly.

                          Bureau of the Census

                     periodic censuses and programs

       Of funds made available under this heading by Public Law 
     111-117, $129,000,000 are hereby rescinded.
        This Act may be cited as the ``United States Patent and 
     Trademark Office Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2010''.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from 
West Virginia (Mr. Mollohan) and the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf) 
each will control 20 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from West Virginia.


                             General Leave

  Mr. MOLLOHAN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members 
have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks on H.R. 
5874.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from West Virginia?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. MOLLOHAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, the United States Patent and Trademark Office, on an 
annual basis practically, has budgetary problems. It arises from the 
system under which they are funded and estimate their own finances, and 
the Appropriations Committee responds to that. It's imperfect because 
their predictions are obviously imperfect. They are talking about 
revenues that they may or may not receive into the future.
  This legislation addresses their concerns for this year. The 
activities of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office are fully financed 
by user fees. And every year Congress appropriates an amount for the 
agency's activities that is equal to what the agency estimates it will 
collect in fees.
  Based on higher-than-estimated fee collections to date in fiscal year 
2010, it appears that the agency could potentially collect more in fees 
this year than was earlier estimated, and these additional fees would 
be unavailable to the agency this year under its current 2010 
appropriation level.
  What this bill, Mr. Speaker, will do, is allow USPTO to spend up to 
an additional $129 million in patent and trademark fees if the agency 
actually collects fees over and above the current appropriation level 
of $1.887 billion. This additional appropriation was requested by 
President Obama's administration and is based on a revised CBO estimate 
of the agency's fee collections for fiscal year 2010. This bill 
reflects the administration's and Congress's commitment to make fee 
revenue available to USPTO for patent and trademark activities.
  The timely and efficient processing of patent and trademark 
applications is critical to the competitiveness of American businesses 
and the contributions of individual inventors to economic growth. The 
USPTO currently takes an average of over 34 months to complete the 
examination of patent application and has maintained a backlog of 
unexamined applications for several years. There are approximately 1.2 
million patent applications now in the system, with over 750,000 
awaiting an initial review by a USPTO patent examiner.
  We should be clear, however, about what this bill will do and what 
this bill will not do. If the additional fees are actually collected in 
the remaining weeks of the fiscal year, the additional $129 million in 
budget authority provided by this bill will begin to help the agency 
address the ongoing patent pendency and backlogs.

                              {time}  1950

  Mr. Speaker, what this bill will not do is fix the underlying 
structural flaws in USPTO's revenue mechanisms that are the major cause 
for the patent pendency and backlog problems that have plagued USPTO 
for years. The only path to a meaningful and permanent reduction in 
patent pendency and the backlog is for stakeholders to support, and 
Congress to approve, new fee authorities for USPTO that will lead to 
patent fees that reflect the actual cost to the agency and to our 
government. But that is beyond the scope of this appropriations bill.
  Before concluding, Mr. Speaker, I want to reiterate that the 
Appropriations Committee consistently appropriates budget authority for 
USPTO based on the agency's own estimates of fee collections, and the 
current year appropriation was no exception to this rule. The 
administration's request for

[[Page H6252]]

this supplemental appropriation is based on higher-than-expected fee 
collections.
  In cases where fees collected by USPTO but not appropriated in an 
annual appropriations bill are credited to a specific account within 
the general Treasury, those additional resources can be made available 
for appropriation to USPTO in subsequent appropriations acts, such as 
the one we are considering today.
  While the bill before us today will not address the underlying 
problems at USPTO, it will provide additional relief to the agency as 
it seeks to address the patent backlog issue, and I urge my colleagues 
to support it.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Yesterday the House passed a supplemental appropriations bill under 
suspension of the rules. I think--and I would ask somebody to look--I 
think this Congress, and every Congress has a history and has a name. I 
think this will be called ``the suspension Congress.'' We have taken 
more legislation up under suspension of the rules, without any 
opportunity for people to be offering amendments. I think whatever side 
you're on, whatever party you're in, there really ought to be the 
opportunity for Members to offer amendments.
  And so I think, I don't know how you would do it, but I officially 
would request that maybe the Clerk of the House look to see how many 
bills at the end of this year were passed by suspension and to see if I 
was right by calling this ``the suspension Congress.''
  We are now resorting to considering an odds and ends bill at the end 
again on suspension. This bill could clearly be put on our own bill. On 
July 12, the administration requested language to allow the Patent and 
Trademark Office to spend an additional $129 million in fiscal year 
2010, with the desired effect being the reduction of backlogs in 
processing patent applications.
  The bill before the House does that, and fully offsets the spending, 
as requested, with a rescission from excess amounts appropriated for 
the 2010 Census. The language in the bill differs somewhat from the 
language requested by the administration. I personally--and maybe 
others on the committee had--but personally I have not seen the bill 
until today after it had been placed on the suspension calendar. So 
you're going to bring a bill up under suspension and the minority, 
maybe other people in the minority, but we haven't been given the 
opportunity even to see it. Since there was no subcommittee or full 
committee consideration and no discussion with the minority prior to 
introduction, I don't know why the changes were made to the request. It 
sort of says we're not going to talk to the minority; we're not going 
to discuss these things. Frankly I would tell the Patent and Trademark 
Office, ``You haven't been up here to talk to anybody.'' Just because 
the party in power happens to be the majority party, this ought to be 
an issue of nonpartisan, or bipartisan working together. But again it 
all just sort of rolls out and comes up.
  Finally, I would just say that this issue could have easily been 
addressed in regular order, either in committee markup or on the 
supplemental where I am sure the chairman, Mr. Mollohan, as we go to 
conference on a bill--and I appreciate the leadership of Mr. Mollohan 
on the committee--we could have rolled it in for timely action on the 
FY11 CJS appropriations bill. I don't know why we're doing it at this 
hour.
  Secondly, anytime one party pushes the other party, and I would say 
this to my own party. If we ever get back into the majority, we ought 
to be sure that we treat the minority the way that we wanted to be 
treated when we were in the minority, because there were times past 
when we were in the majority that we maybe treated the minority in ways 
that we should not have treated them.
  And so I would just say, speaking only for myself, but the party that 
I belong to, I think it's important if or when we return to the 
majority that we have respect for the minority, to notify them and tell 
them and do everything we possibly can to make sure that we're doing 
things in a bipartisan basis, particularly on bills that are not 
Republican or Democrat but are good for the country.
  With that, I would reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. MOLLOHAN. Mr. Speaker, I note the distinguished ranking member's 
comments about ``the suspension Congress'' and lack of notice with 
regard to pieces of legislation.
  I would just point out that, first of all, he is very familiar with 
this bill and very familiar with the USPTO. He has handled this 
legislation very competently as chairman and as ranking member and as a 
member of the committee. So he is very familiar, I know, with the 
subject matter of which we speak and the difficulty that USPTO faces 
because of the structural nature of the way it achieves funding every 
year.
  He also knows that their estimating at the beginning of the year is 
an imperfect process because it's a prediction and it's based upon that 
prediction coming true in the future and it rarely does. They are 
either underestimating, or they overestimate. In this case they have 
financial needs that can be better met with this additional $129 
million. And the good news for USPTO is that they underestimated last 
year. Consequently, if they continue to collect fees at the current 
rate, they will collect $129 million more than they projected.
  Given that, it is only right that we try to address those needs in 
the context of their newly projected fee collections so that they will 
be able to reduce this unacceptable backlog. As the gentleman points 
out, in a negative way, that's not known really until it happens or if 
the trend line begins to become apparent; and it is becoming apparent.
  We're going on recess here in a couple of days. It would be great to 
have notice on everything; a week in advance, or 3 days in advance or 
whenever in advance it would be satisfactory. This is a pretty simple 
proposal actually and I don't think it's difficult to understand.
  I must say we on the majority side weren't noticed many minutes 
before the minority was about the approach to this. I know the 
gentleman is--or I believe from his remarks and his attitude in the 
past with regard to recognizing USPTO's needs, not a current but its 
structural needs of how you fund it, is certainly not opposing this.
  I just wanted to assure him that there is no intent on our part in 
any way to mislead the gentleman.
  Mr. WOLF. If the gentleman will yield, I just want the record to show 
that Mr. Mollohan and his staff have been very fair. And I would not 
want to have the connection of what I said earlier with regard to that. 
Mr. Mollohan and his entire staff have been very, very fair and have 
treated us very, very well. I didn't want that to be inferred.
  With that, I thank the gentleman.
  Mr. MOLLOHAN. I would be very chagrined if we ever did anything but 
treat the gentleman fair. He is an outstanding Member of the Congress.
  Mr. Speaker, a lot of Members are very interested in USPTO and 
interested in fixing it on the authorizing side and, of course, on the 
appropriations side.

                              {time}  2000

  Three of those many Members who are particularly interested in USPTO 
have cosponsored this legislation. One of them is Patrick Murphy of 
Pennsylvania. Mr. Murphy is here to speak on the legislation. The other 
two are Chairman Conyers and Chairman Moran: Chairman Conyers in the 
authorizing committee, and Chairman Moran is a distinguished member of 
the Appropriations Committee. I just want to note that they've been at 
the forefront of fighting for PTO and adequate funding so that they can 
reduce the backlog of which we speak today.
  Mr. Murphy is a young Member, a distinguished member of the Commerce, 
Justice, Science Subcommittee which funds USPTO. He's taken a 
particular interest in this issue, becoming very knowledgeable about 
it, and has been in the forefront of moving this legislation that would 
help them.
  It is my pleasure to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania (Mr. Murphy).
  Mr. PATRICK J. MURPHY of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I thank Chairman 
Mollohan. I appreciate your leadership on this issue and allowing me to 
partner with you on this important piece of legislation.

[[Page H6253]]

  Mr. Speaker, we need to continue to get our economy back on the right 
track, and this bill is about boosting American technology and 
innovation. It's about making things in America again. Right now, at an 
office building outside of Washington, D.C., over 1 million patent 
applications sit gathering dust. Hundreds of thousands have yet to be 
looked at for the first time. Those applications could be the next 
iPhone, the next Netbook, or the next Google. But the agency tasked 
with reviewing those applications just can't keep up. So they sit and 
they sit, often for years. In fact, the average time that it takes a 
patent to be approved is about 30 months, but when you consider that 
today technologies often become obsolete within 18 months or less, it 
is clear that a process that takes 2\1/2\ years is simply too long, and 
it hurts our competitiveness.
  Those applications at the U.S. Patent and Trade Office, or USPTO, 
represent the greatest this country has to offer in terms of new ideas 
and new technologies. They contain any number of breakthroughs that 
could help to propel our economy out of the recession, expand small 
businesses, and create new jobs. And they could be the key to helping 
our Nation maintain its technological edge globally. Patent activity 
among our biggest competitors like China, India, and South Korea have 
shown exponential growth, but this bill is one step in providing the 
USPTO the resources necessary to keep pace with the flow of innovation 
and ensure American businesses and workers can compete globally. And it 
is fully offset with a reduction in spending for the U.S. Census 
Bureau.
  We need to make sure that the USPTO can hire the necessary patent 
examiners, install up-to-date information technology, and make other 
operational changes necessary to get at this backlog. This is an issue 
that's of critical importance for our economy and the job market. I 
encourage my colleagues to join me in supporting this commonsense and 
paid-for legislation. I know the manufacturers in Bucks County, 
Pennsylvania, and across our country care about it.
  I want to thank, again, the leadership of Chairman Mollohan.
  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. MOLLOHAN. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I 
yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the 
gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Mollohan) that the House suspend the 
rules and pass the bill, H.R. 5874.
  The question was taken; and (two-thirds being in the affirmative) the 
rules were suspended and the bill was passed.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

                          ____________________