See: National Journal Online — Tech Daily Dose — Leahy Offers Patent Office Bailout Bill.
The $10,000 question is whether the precipitous drope in USPTO revenue was caused by the economy, or by the previous administration’s policies that dropped allowance rates from near 80% to near 40% (which itself results in less issue fee revenue, less maintanance fee revenue, and fewer filings). Perhaps it was a combination of the two…I guess we’ll never know.
Related posts:
Maybe the drop in the allowance rate was designed to get more fees via RCEs, continuations, etc. If it was, it doesn’t seem to have worked out too well.