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: Just a Patent Examiner

Thanks, Congress.

By just_n_examiner

Last week, Director Kappos sent an email to the examining corps to advise them of the impact the FY2011 budget passed by Congress would have on the Office.

Pretty significant impact, if you ask me.

The budget passed by Congress limits the Office to 2.09 billion dollars in spending for the fiscal year, which means that the Office cannot spend 85-100 million dollars of fees they collect. This will prevent the Office from maintaining the spending levels planned for the remainder of the year.

The bottom line:

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* All overtime is suspended until further notice;

* Hiring?both for new positions and for backfills?is frozen for the rest of the year unless an exemption is given by the Office of the Under Secretary;

* Funding for employee training will be limited to mandatory training for the remainder of the year;

* Funding for contracting of Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) search is significantly reduced;

* The opening of the planned Nationwide Workforce satellite office in Detroit and any consideration of other satellite locations are postponed until further notice;

* Only limited funding will be available for mission-critical IT capital investments;

* The Track One expedited patent examination program, scheduled to go into effect on May 4, 2011, is postponed until further notice.

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Ouch.

Full post as published by Just a Patent Examiner on April 26, 2011 (boomark / email).