The US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is not exempt from the "sequestration" budget cuts being imposed on government agencies. For now, one casualty of the cuts will be that agency's plan to open an office in Silicon Valley in the near future, according to a Sunday report by The Associated Press. The Silicon Valley office was an idea that has been suggested for years, and it looked like it was finally coming to fruition.

The USPTO is funded by the fees paid by companies and persons seeking patents, not by taxpayers. The office collects $2.8 billion in such fees annually. But that doesn't protect it from the across-the-board budget cuts that were imposed when Congress failed to strike a budget deal earlier this year.

The California patent office is slated to be headed up by Michelle Lee, a former Google attorney. During her time at Google, Lee was one of the first lawyers to speak out about the harmful effects of "patent trolls." Her appointment was taken as a hopeful sign by many in the tech sector seeking changes to the patent system.

Other satellite offices are moving along. A Detroit office opened last year. Permanent sites have been selected for offices in Denver and Dallas, but construction has not yet begun in those cities.

California has no permanent site selected. In the long term, a full satellite office is still planned for the Silicon Valley area with as many as 150 new examiners. Still, it's unclear when that might actually occur. Currently, Lee is working with a few administrative law judges in temporary office space borrowed from another government agency in Menlo Park, according to the AP.

The article quotes one unhappy entrepreneur, Dave Clark, head of tech pet products startup called Petzila. Clark says he's eight months into his business and he and his partner spend about 20 percent of their energy on getting a patent. "It would be a godsend if we could meet with a patent examiner," Clark told the AP. "It would cut our costs and time in half and our anxiety by 60 percent."