In a major victory for the intellectual property community, President Bush on February 2 sent a budget recommendation to Congress that calls for no diversion of PTO user fee revenue in the fiscal year beginning October 1, 2004. The Administration's proposal calls for a two-step funding process for the Office: one for funding in the absence of enactment of fee increases, and one for funding if a new fee bill is enacted.

In the absence of fee increases, the proposal anticipates that the Office will collect $1,314,653,000 in FY 05, all of which would be made available to the Office. This represents an increase of $92 million over funding for the current year.

If the fee bill currently under consideration in the Congress is enacted, the Administration anticipates that an additional $219 million will be collected. All of this amount would be made available to the Office, for a total of $1,533,000,000.

These recommendations are course subject to congressional approval, but the Administration’s support for ending diversion is an important first step.

Hayden Gregory
Legislative Consultant
ABA-IPL Section
740 15th NW
Washington, DC 20005-1009
Tel: 202 662-1772
Fax: 202 662-1762
e-mail: gregoryh@staff.abanet.org

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