Building Careers and Shaping Public Policy

14 September 2004

The Honorable Judd Gregg
Chair, Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce,
     Justice, State and the Judiciary
Senate Appropriations Committee
United States Senate
Washington DC 20510

Dear Senator Gregg:

On behalf of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers-United States of America (IEEE-USA) I am writing to request that the Senate Commerce-State-Justice Appropriations Committee not pass an increase in fees for patent applications without a concurrent mechanism to allow the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to permanently end the practice of diverting USPTO funds for other purposes.

We concur with the statement of then Acting Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property Jon Dudas that, "with access to all of the user fees in the year collected, the USPTO can sustain its vital role in strengthening the economy and creating jobs by ensuring the U.S. continues to lead the world in producing the most timely and reliable intellectual property protection for American innovators."

The patent and trademark system serves to reduce the risks of commercial ventures and provides a business tool that helps U.S. corporations compete in the global market. The need to protect their patents and other forms of intellectual property also creates an incentive for U.S. companies to keep highly-skilled engineering, computer and other technical professionals with knowledge of these protected technologies close to home, rather than shipping their jobs overseas. By contrast, fee diversion is likely to delay the issuance of patents and trademark registrations if the USPTO is forced to reduce staff; and the number of patent applications will drop if the USPTO raises filing fees to make up for the diversion of funds, as the current plan prescribes. For these reasons, fee diversion undermine corporate competitiveness, discourage formation of new and innovation technology ventures, and put jobs at risk.

For years, the United States has been a magnet for new technology ventures. One has only to look at the greater number of foreign applicants filing in the USPTO compared to U.S. applicants filing in foreign patent offices. A significant reason for this is the overall strength of the U.S. patent system. Discontinuing fee diversion will help the U.S. patent system to remain the leader and will enhance our ability to attract new technology ventures to the U.S. This will have a positive effect on capital formation for such ventures in the United States, which in turn will help create new high paying jobs.

IEEE-USA is an organizational unit of The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc., created in 1973 to advance the public good, while promoting the careers and public-policy interests of the more than 225,000 electrical, electronics, computer and software engineers who are U.S. members of the IEEE. The IEEE is the world's largest technical professional society.

Sincerely,

Gerard A. Alphonse, Ph.D.
President-Elect

Letter sent to members of the Senate Appropriations
Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, State and the Judiciary