Good leaders can always captalize on bad situations. This is the best time for PTO to close the gap of backlog and hire best talented professionals. The strength of PTO is at PTA (Patent Training Academy) becasue it trains new examiners get ready for the job. It generates power to get the job done. Expand the PTA, and it will have positive returns for PTO.

I read the artical pretty critically, so I understand. I don’t always write in the most legally proper way. My statement was more of a “check this out.”

I was not involved in the USPTO/POPA discussion, so I don’t know exactly what proposals POPA offered, but for some reason I doubt it was regarding PGPUBS increasing the art available and creating more work for examiners. If it were, then PTO management might have been convinced or at least intrigued. As far as I know, me and the others on these blogs lately have been the only ones drumming up support. There is a downside to anonymous blogging – not everyone reads it, even if it does make sense.

I know the locked funds belong to the USPTO. Unfortunately, the amount of money it will take to unlock those funds will probably be more than $5 million. That is why I said they should just take this PGPUB factual basis position and temporarily adjust the production system. I think the facts speak for themselves and are fairly “comprehensive.” I guess it depends on your definition of “comprehensive,” but maybe Congress would accept a staggered approach. First, adjust the standards based on at least one factual basis right in front of you, then weight more options.

If Congress doesn’t release those funds because the standard of “comprehensive” is too high, then this process will take many years. What kinds of studies are necessary to be comprehensive? There will be a lot of subjective factors, which leads me to believe the outcome will be pretty much worthless anyway. If the study is anything like the previous one, then they will see how long it takes a GS-12 examiner to successfully complete their job. Unfortunately, the data may be skewed because of the unreasonable requirements currently imposed on them. They perform their job just so they can meet those requirements.
Consider the amount of voluntary overtime they put in to meet production.

That’s all I have for now…

I read the artical pretty critically, so I understand. I don’t always write in the most legally proper way. My statement was more of a “check this out.”

I was not involved in the USPTO/POPA discussion, so I don’t know exactly what proposals POPA offered, but for some reason I doubt it was regarding PGPUBS increasing the art available and creating more work for examiners. If it were, then PTO management might have been convinced or at least intrigued. As far as I know, me and the others on these blogs lately have been the only ones drumming up support. There is a downside to anonymous blogging – not everyone reads it, even if it does make sense.

I know the locked funds belong to the USPTO. Unfortunately, the amount of money it will take to unlock those funds will probably be more than $5 million. That is why I said they should just take this PGPUB factual basis position and temporarily adjust the production system. I think the facts speak for themselves and are fairly “comprehensive.” I guess it depends on your definition of “comprehensive,” but maybe Congress would accept a staggered approach. First, adjust the standards based on at least one factual basis right in front of you, then weight more options.

If Congress doesn’t release those funds because the standard of “comprehensive” is too high, then this process will take many years. What kinds of studies are necessary to be comprehensive? There will be a lot of subjective factors, which leads me to believe the outcome will be pretty much worthless anyway. If the study is anything like the previous one, then they will see how long it takes a GS-12 examiner to successfully complete their job. Unfortunately, the data may be skewed because of the unreasonable requirements currently imposed on them. They perform their job just so they can meet those requirements.
Consider the amount of voluntary overtime they put in to meet production.

That’s all I have for now…

The other possibility (one that might have been likely under Dudas) is the PTO will conduct a $750 comprehensive study on production goals in order to get access to the $5 million and then base the next 20 years of agency operation on the production goals produced by the $750 study .

Not a good string for Congress to apply to an agency in need of immediate cash which should be free (and encouraged) to address its future operations without being presently penalized for so doing, in my view.

I don’t think you understand the purpose of pre-appeal conferences. The purpose is to ensure that the issues presented by the applicant are appealable. It’s not to determine whether the examiner’s actions are right, wrong, or even reasonable. Pre-appeals were designed because the BPAI was kicking back down a lot of garbage (mainly because applicants were appealing unappealable issues and the examiner wasn’t catching it).

The examiner will generally consider applicant’s arguments on their merits in the pre-appeal stage, just to make sure he hasn’t screwed up royally. However, if you present persuasive arguments in a brief that are not in the pre-appeal, or expanded upon them in comparison, then it is perfectly reasonable for the examiner to find the new arguments persuasive, while the old arguments were not.

Thank you for the link, but you will have to read more critically – the five million is NOT extra. It is a part of the USPTO appropriations package, a part of what the Office would have had anyway. And not only is that 5 mil NOT extra, by Congress tying a string to it, the Office may be denied that five million. Instead of +5, or 0 as the case may be, you will likely be -5.

I haven’t read the POPA newsletter before, so it may be the journalistic style, but the description of the negotiations between POPA and the Office does not look good for that 5 million being released. “When POPA offered counter proposals, the agency said no and gave no alternatives of its own.”

It is NOT an encouraging sign that POPA has to “hammer” out an agreement to even be involved as a partner and stakeholder in the process.

The Congressional mandate was for a COMPREHENSIVE review and adoption of revised goals. I’m not sure that an interim goal adjustment would have even loosened the purse strings (POPA may have been barking up the wrong tree), and given that POPA believes that the comprehensive study would likely take multiple years, the likely impact may be further aggravated if Congress applies additional pressure by tying more funds in next year’s appropriation bill.

Perhaps the Office should divert its power-grabbing time and energy to fixing its house rather than rewriting the law to fit its agenda.. How many man-hours went into the efforts on the new rules? As much as Gene likes to think that the Office has changed its tune, you just don’t see different music in this critical area. Congress is dropping hints that the Office needs to redirect where it spends its resources, but the Office keeps marching to its own drums.

Forget caselaw, money rules in getting your applications allowed.

“The production goal review got rolling after Congress
inserted a line in the 2009 Omnibus Appropriation Act
stating that “of the amounts provided to the USPTO within
this account, $5 million shall not become available for
obligation until the Director of the USPTO has completed a
comprehensive review of the assumptions behind the patent
examiner expectancy goals and adopted a revised set of
expectancy goals for patent examination.””

See POPA’s July 2009 newletter, page 2: http://www.popa.org/pdf/newsletters/2009_07.pdf

Or is is bad timing with the budget situation to actually propose something that appears unintuitive, but in actuality it is logical?