Senator Norm Coleman to introduce COMPETE Act: The Return of Anti-Fee Diversion

Yesterday, Senator Norm Coleman (MN) held a series of summits in his home state to introduce the Collaborative Opportunities to Mobilize and Promote Education, Technology, and Enterprise (COMPETE) Act.

According to this summary from the Minnesota Precision Manufacturing Association (MPMA), the bill contains the anti-fee diversion provisions of The Patent and Trademark Fee Modernization Act (HR 1561) from the 108th Congress:

Title III – U.S. PTO Fee Modernization 

Section 301-307 – Increase Patent Trademark Office (PTO) Fees and Funding

 

This section increases fees, makes all fees available to be appropriated for use by the Patent Trademark Office, and provides for refunds to fee payers of fees not appropriated.

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This section would increase the fees that the PTO collects for activities related to the processing and filing of patent and trademark applications and would grant PTO permanent authority to collect and spend those fees.  It creates a PTO Reserve Fund into which fees collected in excess of PTO appropriations in a fiscal year would be deposited.  In the following year, the Director of the PTO would refund the excess fees to those PTO users who paid fees during the first fiscal year.

 

This section is basically H.R. 1561, which passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 379-28.

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 The FY2005 Commerce-Justice-State (CJS) appropriations bill includes $1.5 billion for PTO, which is $322.3 million above the FY04 level.  The CJS bill includes language that raises the amount of fees PTO may collect by $208 million. These additional funds are necessary for PTO to fully implement the Twenty-First Century Strategic Plan and to put an end to the pendency problems that have plagued the agency for so long.  While the CJS bill provides a one-year solution to the PTO funding issue, a long-term solution is needed.

According to Senator Coleman, the Act will:

• Improve the ability of American companies to stay on the forefront of the technological revolution by expanding the R&D tax credit and improving the patent and trademark process;
• Establish partnerships between institutions of higher education and those in the private sector that have expertise in math, science and technology. These partnerships will provide training, technical assistance, professional development opportunities, and disseminate math and science education materials to teachers and students in the surrounding region;
• Provide a tax credit to help businesses and individuals upgrade their information technology and communication skills;
• Create a $3,500 tax credit for graduate students who study engineering, science, or mathematics, which will help to ensure that America continues to produce the best engineers and scientists in the world;
• Establish a bonus grant of $500,000 to the top five elementary and secondary schools in each state who improve the most in their math and science state assessment test scores.

The legislation has not yet been formally introduced.  I will post a review of the patent and trademark provisions following formal introduction.