There are some five hundred thousand applications filed per year, about half of which (so same order of magnitude) are granted [1]. In order for them to make a single billion dollars, there needs to be a few thousand dollars _profit_ on the fees -- I assume, since you said "make", that we're talking about profit and not revenue.
If we're talking about revenue, then it is somewhat close to believable, but there's no reason for them to be reluctant to cut revenue if it also means that they get to cut expenses (on employing reviewers). The top patent holders for the last several years running [2] are all in the software industry, so it's reasonable to expect the USPTO's expenses to drop significantly if software patents were disallowed.
(Finally, the patent office is not a private corporation, but an entity of the government, so the battle is absolutely winnable by merely outlawing software patents.)
There are some five hundred thousand applications filed per year, about half of which (so same order of magnitude) are granted [1]. In order for them to make a single billion dollars, there needs to be a few thousand dollars _profit_ on the fees -- I assume, since you said "make", that we're talking about profit and not revenue.
If we're talking about revenue, then it is somewhat close to believable, but there's no reason for them to be reluctant to cut revenue if it also means that they get to cut expenses (on employing reviewers). The top patent holders for the last several years running [2] are all in the software industry, so it's reasonable to expect the USPTO's expenses to drop significantly if software patents were disallowed.
(Finally, the patent office is not a private corporation, but an entity of the government, so the battle is absolutely winnable by merely outlawing software patents.)
[1] http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/ido/oeip/taf/us_stat.htm [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_top_United_States_paten...