Broadcasting & Cable: Groups Want Patent and Trademark Office Exempted from Trump Hiring Freeze, by John Eggerton
This post originally appeared in Broadcasting & Cable on April 10, 2017.
The Innovation Alliance has joined with other patent-protecting groups to ask the Trump Administration to exempt the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) from its hiring freeze saying the freeze will add even more “pending” items to the currently overloaded “patent pending” approval process.
That came in a letter to President Donald Trump in which they also said Congress should end the diversion of ISPTO fees. Like the FCC, the USPTO funds itself from fees on users–in the case of the Patent Office that is fees on patent and trademark applications.