Patent Procedures at the PTO: A New Naples Roundtable Study (con’d)

Regards,
Hal

The First Response:  I have long been pressing Director Lee openly to reward outstanding examiners and discipline, at least by transfer to less desirable and less harmful positions, those who perform poorly, whether by pattern of wrongful allowances or pattern of wrongful denials.  She implied contracts or understandings with the union largely tied her hands.  I would love to investigate these issues and determine the extent of accuracy in her explanations.

If she is really blocked, then the  PTO-union arrangements must be revised.  If she is not, then she should be placed under unrelenting pressure to do as I suggested.

The Second Response:  The Collective Bargaining Agreement can be found here.http://popa.org/about/popa-legal-texts/.  Many other agreements, e.g., teleworking, can be found on the POPA web site.  Tellingly, the CBA is dated in 1986.  Like “compact prosecution” the CBA needs to be torn up and the entire patent examination system needs to be re-engineered staring with a clean sheet of paper.  If Ms. Lee is retained as Director, I hope she has new marching orders regarding the PTO’s relationship with POPA to where PTO management will take control of the agency back from the union.