35 U.S.C. § 42 — Patent and Trademark Office funding

(a) All fees the Patent and Trademark Office charges for its services and materials are payable to the Director. (b) All fees paid to the Director, and all money Congress appropriates to run the Office, go into the Patent and Trademark Office Appropriation Account in the U.S. Treasury. (c) (1) When Congress's appropriations acts say so in advance, the Director collects the fees this title or other laws authorize and uses them to run the Patent and Trademark Office. (2) The Treasury has a Patent and Trademark Fee Reserve Fund. If the Office collects more in fees during a fiscal year than Congress appropriated for that year, the extra money goes into this Fund. Congress controls how much of the Fund the Office can spend, and that spending must follow the rule in (3). (3)(A) Money collected as patent fees, and any surcharges on those fees, can only pay for processing patent applications, for other patent-related activities, services, and materials, and for the Office's fair share of its own administrative costs. (B) Money collected as trademark fees under section 31 of the Trademark Act of 1946, and any surcharges on those fees, can only pay for processing trademark registrations, for other trademark-related activities, services, and materials, and for the Office's fair share of its own administrative costs. (d) The Director can refund a fee that someone paid by mistake or paid too much of. (e) Each year, on the same day the President sends the budget to Congress, the Secretary of Commerce must give the Senate and House Judiciary Committees: (1) a list of the patent and trademark fees the Office collected the previous fiscal year; (2) a list of the Office's activities that year that were paid for with patent fees, trademark fees, or appropriations; (3) budget plans for the Office's major programs, projects, and activities, including estimates for future years; (4) any plan for what to do with extra fee money; and (5) any other information the committees say they need.