USPTO

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you're an examiner, you are on a quota and its been referred to as a "legal sweatshop". You probably won't work in a technology you are familiar with.

If you can handle the work, you can work 100% at home, on a special pay scale. You can get bonuses up to 14% of pay which is unusual for federal employment. You set your own hours, can work overtime and comp time.

The job is extremely flexible. Promotions are not competitive to GS-14, and rapid promotion from grades 5-11 (2x a year).

Agree. My neighbor works there as an examiner and said it’s such a sweatshop someone died in the office, and everyone just kept working while the ambulance came. She also doesn’t get federal holidays. She’s trying to get out.

Your neighbor must be really bad at her job. She definitely gets federal holidays—if she ends up working them it’s because she’s inefficient.

It all depends, I logged on to my PTO skype account, and at this moment, after 10pm on a saturday nite, I found 5 co-workers online.

It's not unheard of either to find people working second jobs and having to work crazy hours to keep up with DM/quota or log their hours on RSP.

[Anonymous]

The actual best job in the office is to be a APJ (administrative patent judge).

Its like being an examiner, but the art is provided for you. Pay starts off about the same as a GS-14 with a few years experience, but scales up rapidly ending up around 180k. They can't work overtime but can get 5% quarterly bonuses.

If you're on the ex-parte side rather than IPRs, you get considerably more time than an examiner gets, more or less a week to deal with one case. versus 10-25 hours as a primary examiner for a BD. They also have hoteling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you're an examiner, you are on a quota and its been referred to as a "legal sweatshop". You probably won't work in a technology you are familiar with.

If you can handle the work, you can work 100% at home, on a special pay scale. You can get bonuses up to 14% of pay which is unusual for federal employment. You set your own hours, can work overtime and comp time.

The job is extremely flexible. Promotions are not competitive to GS-14, and rapid promotion from grades 5-11 (2x a year).

Agree. My neighbor works there as an examiner and said it’s such a sweatshop someone died in the office, and everyone just kept working while the ambulance came. She also doesn’t get federal holidays. She’s trying to get out.

What? None of this story your neighbor is telling you makes sense. of course we get all federal holidays off, along with fairly generous early dismissals, great sick leave and really flexible part time options for family care. And most of us telework full time from home, anywhere in the country in fact, in flexible hours. but we have private offices if you stay on campus anyway, so most people wouldn't necessarily know if someone had an emergency, but you could just flex your hours if you were upset by that. Its nowhere near like a factory. It's a job with tremendous flexibility and good benefits. You do have to work your full hours to meet your quota, but nothing like the overtime put in in most of the private sector. Examining can be tedious and people often go out on details every Few years to get a break from it, but the independence and flexibility of examining is compelling. Few leave the agency. Most of those that do just aren't cut out for the work. Would be tough Especially for someone who is an extreme extrovert or needs lots of people interaction and/or external motivation as It's pretty solitary, self directed work. -patent examiner for five years.

There's usually at least one death a year at the PTO. The office tries to keep quiet about it. Apparently INOVA refers to the PTO as "The heart attack office". Typically its an examiner who died working over the weekend.

I've been hoteling over a decade, but back when I was on campus, you used to see ambulances at least once a week stopping by the Jefferson health center.

The legal sweatshop thing is a very longstanding complaint. I'm not sure if you've been around long enough to remember the old POPA newsletters that we used to get in paper, but that was a charge POPA used to level quite a bit. You'll also see the same if you read up on IP watchdog, or patently-o.

It's not uncommon to see people working on holidays to catch up, though long ago, many primaries worked holidays to take advantage of holiday pay rather than GS 10/1 pay that we used to get for overtime which was a bad deal, unless you were a more junior examiner.

Few people leaving the agency has been largely true since hoteling was implemented, though the turnover rate used to be around 20% before it was implemented. The reasons the PTO pays as much as it does, and has all the flexibly it does is because they couldn't historically keep people around.

The new docket management bonuses are way easier than the old workflow system, and far more lucrative.

The only advice I have for potential examiners is make sure you get hired into an area with a backlog (business methods, networking, and oil bumps have large backlogs right now). The PTO has over-hired in recent years and some docket areas are drying up for reasons known in the IP community. Don't be surprised if there are RIFs in the future in some TCs, particularly the electrical TCs. The way they allocate examiners doesn't always seem to match up with the actual backlogs or projections.

All depends on the art unit and your spe. Some examiner seem relax because their spe aren't strict on quality. There are some examiner where they have almost over 100 allowances before they hit their gs-12 promotion. And there some examiner where they can't even allow. This is where you see some examiner working harder than others because they can't allow. All depends on spe and art unit.

[Anonymous]

I've been a Trademak Examiner for 20+ years. The trademark side and the patent side are very different. There are quotas on both sides but I don't feel like the quotas are too burdensome. You have to work steadily but you get more efficient with experience. You get excellent training and support. There is a lot of flexibility. I work from home full time. I have a toddler (I'm a very old mom and he is adopted for those of you doing the math) and I'm able to flex during the week if he has a doctor appointment or he gets sick. The work can get repetitive and tedious but isn't that the way with many jobs? You always know what is expected of you and if you meet whatever goal is set you will get promoted along with the rest of your colleagues.

The trademark lawyers are represented by an effective union. The work at home program started on the trademark side 23 or so years ago with 18 examining attorneys and the union worked in partnership with management to get it done. We have the only maternity/paternity comp time program in the federal government thanks to a union contract. We get bar dues reimbursed. (Only one state admission)

For the poster who is thinking of applying to the trademark side, I'm happy to chat further.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've been a Trademak Examiner for 20+ years. The trademark side and the patent side are very different. There are quotas on both sides but I don't feel like the quotas are too burdensome. You have to work steadily but you get more efficient with experience. You get excellent training and support. There is a lot of flexibility. I work from home full time. I have a toddler (I'm a very old mom and he is adopted for those of you doing the math) and I'm able to flex during the week if he has a doctor appointment or he gets sick. The work can get repetitive and tedious but isn't that the way with many jobs? You always know what is expected of you and if you meet whatever goal is set you will get promoted along with the rest of your colleagues.

The trademark lawyers are represented by an effective union. The work at home program started on the trademark side 23 or so years ago with 18 examining attorneys and the union worked in partnership with management to get it done. We have the only maternity/paternity comp time program in the federal government thanks to a union contract. We get bar dues reimbursed. (Only one state admission)

For the poster who is thinking of applying to the trademark side, I'm happy to chat further.

Is there any real chance for someone who isn't fresh out of law school to get hired or are recent graduates with little to no experience preferred?

[Anonymous]

Trademark Examiner here. Yes, there is a chance for lawyers who aren't fresh out of law school. We hire lawyers with different levels of experience. In addition, there is a separate posting for former examiners so you aren't competing with those who already have experience. The lawyers that are new to the office go through a 6 or 8 week training program (classroom based) and then all new lawyers are assigned a mentor that reviews your work until they believe you are ready to do it on your own.

[Anonymous]

Interesting reading some of these posts as an examiner for almost 20 years. USPTO absolutely gets federal holidays. It’s a great job for the right people but is not a good fit for everyone. Telework and non-competitive raises are wonderful but you need to be really disciplined and self-motivated. All of your work and everything you do is quantified and no one much keeps you on track besides yourself. As someone unthread said, it can get boring or tedious at times but I think that is generally true of most jobs.

[Anonymous]

I hear NASA is awesome too.

[Anonymous]

If you take a job at USPTO, don't expect much hand-holding. You need to be very independent to be successful.

Your boss will make or break your experience. Unfortunately on the patent side, most of the supervisors did not examine patents in your area and as such don't know the technology so well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Trademark Examiner here. Yes, there is a chance for lawyers who aren't fresh out of law school. We hire lawyers with different levels of experience. In addition, there is a separate posting for former examiners so you aren't competing with those who already have experience. The lawyers that are new to the office go through a 6 or 8 week training program (classroom based) and then all new lawyers are assigned a mentor that reviews your work until they believe you are ready to do it on your own.

Thank you for taking the time to answer. I've been trying for many years to get hired, but thus far I've haven't even been extended an interview. I hear that they get tons of applications for few positions every time.