WASHINGTON – This year's edition of the annual meeting of the Medical Device Manufacturers Association (MDMA; Washington), included a talk by David Kappos, director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, who discussed several topics, including the prospects for ending fee diversion at PTO in the shadow of the U.S. federal budget deficit. He emphasized the importance of passing patent reform legislation, and said suggestions that ending fee diversion would allow PTO to act as an unsupervised free agent indicate a need for a "fact-based" discussion of congressional and other oversight of PTO encoded in the House patent reform bill. (Medical Device Daily)