I agree with you, particularly the part about “breaking their arms patting themselves on the back…”

We also won’t have to hear from those folks at every conference. With the budget the way it is the USPTO is eliminating travel. But then we are never going to know what is going on inside the walls of the PTO. I am not sure that is a good thing. At least every so often those on the inside would come out, take lumps at a conference and go back. Admittedly, it was never the folks who were responsible. I think we have shot a lot of good messengers over the years, when our ire was really directed at those a rank or two above the ones on tour.

-Gene

I am 35 USC 41′s most ardent champion. I agree the PTO should charge what it costs to actually examine the application. But like I said, the current crop of (mis)managers have absolutely ZERO credibility. Their pronouncements on what it actually costs them are far from transparent. They are in fact beyond opaque. A veritable black hole.

They also need to do better with the money they’ve already spent, are currently spending, and plan to spend. The billions they’ve spent on the “paperless” patent office are a farce. They still have far too many clerical staff shuffling “electronic documents” around the ether over there. The amount of time it takes to simply docket a response to the examiner is simply disgraceful. I file EVERY response by EFS and I still see 3, 4, 5, and even 6 week delays in having the responses forwarded to the examiner. Some responses don’t move until I pick up the phone and call somebody and ask, “What is going on over there???!!!!!” And then, of course, the examiner gets 60 days. Plus the end of the biweek in which the 60th day falls. And then until noon on count Monday. And even that doesn’t move the cases anymore. I have a response I filed 4/15/2008. Still haven’t received anything from the examiner. That’s about twenty thousand negative work flow points on the examiner’s PAP. But the SPE is simply excusing them all. I’m sure the whole art unit is getting rated as having “record breaking outstanding quality” and bonuses. They’re breaking their arms patting themselves on the back over there.

There are HUGE pendency reductions to be had if the PTO would stop sending the lifer (mis)managers to every conference of every group that will have them so they can blame the entire backlog and pendency on applicants and practitioners. Like I said, show me that they can actually do something as simple as delivering the mail and they’ll gain some credibility.

As for your comment on those at the PTO who “don’t bill time” so to speak, that is another ENORMOUS problem over there. They have created platoons, squadrons, regiments, companies, brigades, and ENTIRE armies of donothingknownothinguselessdeadweightGS-15 positions with idiotic titles like “business process specialists” and “subject matter experts” and so forth. If these people want to get paid GS-15 salaries, let them do a little GS-15 production. Enough! Send them all back to examining.

How do you really feel?

I share your frustrations, and while they do charge more for additional claims I think the problem is that they do not charge enough for the amount of work to be done in terms of a base fee. For example, less assume a small entity files an application with 20 claims. The filing fee will be $540. If the examiner spends 20 hours on the file that averages out to $27 per hour. Now lets assume that the examiner makes $100,000 per year and works 40 hours a week for 50 weeks a year. That means that the base salary for the examiner if $50 per hour, and then there will be benefits on top of that. So lets just add $10 per hour for benefits, which is pretty conservative. That takes our examiner up to $60 per hour. So already the Patent Office is in the whole $32 an hour. Then there needs to be support staff, management and others who will be getting paid but not “billing” time. It is easy to see how the PTO spends more per applicaton than they take in. This is why the PTO makes up the difference on maintenance fees, because there is no additional work. WIth decreasing allowance rates, and decreasing applicaton numbers, it is no wonder the PTO management is quite worried.

The thought of government raising cost, whether by fees or taxes, is not generally a good idea in my opinion, but something needs to be done. For years the PTO has resisted charging a fee commensurate with the amount of work done. Nevertheless, most users of the patent system, particularly those who are not independent inventors or truly small businesses, would be willing to pay more for better service and higher quality. I think that is something to consider trying!

-Gene

Even if this number is somewhat accurate, and not just pulled out of thin air (like much of the Orwellian Newspeak from the PTO), it’s still a bunch of crap.

The PTO has been charging for extra claims since the 1980′s and for extra pages since December, 2004, and has never, NEVER, provided either the applicants or the examiners with what was paid for: extra examining resources for extra claims/pages.

The PTO fee scheme is complete, total, and utter GARBAGE. Until the PTO gets rid of the “one time fits all” examiner production system, and gives applicants what they have been paying for, and not receiving, then every single utterance about fees from their mouths should be jeered into oblivion.

PTO (mis)management has ZERO credibility on fees. They’ve collected BILLIONS in fees, and spent HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS, if not BILLIONS, on a electronic filing system and image file wrapper system that has not produced one iota of improvement in the handling of responses. I file every single response by EFS and what I see is “11/24/08 – Amendment filed” and then “1/03/09 – Application docketed to examiner.”

IT IS GARBAGE. When the PTO can show that they can actually “deliver the mail” on time, maybe then we can talk about increasing fees. Until then, forget it.

Millions for defense. Not a penny in tribute.