Patent office relocation, reforms advance

Efforts to relocate and reform the Patent and Trademark Office advanced this summer, but obstacles to the changes are likely to resurface this fall.

Earlier this month, both the House and Senate passed versions of the Commerce-Justice-State appropriations bill that allow for PTO to relocate its offices from 18 buildings in Arlington, Va., to a single building in Alexandria, Va.

The House also passed a bill, H.R. 1907, that would give PTO more freedom from its parent Commerce Department. The bill would also give top executives at the office bonuses worth 50 percent of their salaries if they meet high performance standards.

PTO's move to Alexandria has been criticized as overly expensive by the National Taxpayers Union and by Charles E. Smith company, the patent office's current landlord. Last month, a U.S. District Court judge in Alexandria dismissed a complaint Smith filed against PTO. Smith has also hired the Washington law firm Patton Boggs LLP to lobby Congress against the move.

The taxpayers union lined up Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., to offer an amendment to the commerce appropriations bill blocking the move. But McCain was on the campaign trail when the Senate debated the measure, so he missed his chance to offer the amendment.

Pete Sepps, a spokesman for the taxpayers union, said efforts to block the move will continue, particularly since the PTO plan could be used as a model for other government agencies' real estate deals.

"The Department of Transportation, for example, is considering a very similar arrangement whereby new space would be built and the government would lease rather than own the space," Sepps said. "It seems clear to us that few of the lessons from the Ronald Reagan building or [the Federal Communications Commission's] Portals have been learned in terms of holding down extravagance."

An amendment to block the move could still be added to the commerce appropriations bill in conference.

Meanwhile, according to the House Judiciary Committee, H.R. 1907 would help PTO manage its operations "without micromanagement by Department of Commerce officials." PTO officials would have "responsibility for decisions regarding the management and administration of its operations and shall exercise independent control of its budget allocations and expenditures, personnel decisions and processes, procurements, and other administrative and management functions," the bill says.

The bill is a scaled-down version of previous proposals to make PTO an independent government corporation or a performance-based organization. In H.R. 1907, PTO would be a semi-autonomous agency of the Commerce Department and would still be subject to governmentwide civil service rules.

The Senate has yet to take up the bill, which in previous forms was opposed by the union representing patent examiners, the Patent Office Professionals Association.