USPTO Performance and Accountability Report - U.S. Patent and ...

tion of our IT systems from end-to-end. As we are an
agency funded entirely by user fees, this affects our
operations significantly.
As the economy has begun showing signs of recovering,
the Patent and Trademark application filings
have also been slowly recovering.
The USPTO was provided appropriation authority to
spend anticipated fee collections in FY 2012 for an
amount up to $2,706.3 million. This was more than
the amount of total fees collected in FY 2012.
A significant portion of the anticipated FY 2012 fee
collections were collected in FY 2011 due to early
renewals that were paid prior to the implementation
of the 15 percent surcharge on September 26, 2011.
When spending authority is less than fee collections,
the additional fee collections are temporarily
unavailable.
The following charts present the source of funds
made available to the USPTO in FY 2012, and the use
of such funds representing FY 2012 total obligations
incurred, as reflect on the Statement of Budgetary
Resources.
USPTO operations rely on patent maintenance fees
to fund a portion of the work being completed
each fiscal year. During FY 2012, maintenance fees
collected decreased $121.4 million, or 14.8 percent,
from FY 2011. As maintenance fees are one of the
largest sources of budgetary resources and are
recognized immediately as earned revenue, any
fluctuations in the rates of renewal have a significant
impact on the total resources available to
the USPTO. To some extent, renewals recoup costs
MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS
incurred during the initial patent process. As shown
on page 73, the renewal rates for all three stages
of maintenance fees decreased during FY 2012.
Due to the implementation of the 15 percent fee
surcharge on September 26, 2011, the FY 2011
renewal rates include some early renewals that
would have otherwise been renewed in FY 2012
(increased FY 2011 renewal rates, but decreased
FY 2012 renewal rates).
As defined earlier, temporarily unavailable fee
collections occur when the USPTO is not appropriated
the authority to spend all fees collected during
a given year. During FY 2012, the USPTO did not
collect any fee collections that were designated as
temporarily unavailable. As a result, the $790.1 million
in temporarily unavailable fee collections at the end
of FY 2011 remained the same through FY 2012.
The chart on the next page illustrates amounts of
fees that Congress has appropriated to the USPTO
for spending over the past five fiscal years, as well as
the cumulative unavailable fee collections.
www.uspto.gov
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