SiliconBeat

The government can’t hire new examiners fast enough to keep up with the old examiners who are throwing in the towel. That’s the cherry on top of a report from the Government Accountability Office published Thursday that says, “Increases in the volume and complexity of patent applications have lengthened the amount of time it takes the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to process them.”

“In each of the last 5 years,” the report says, the patent office “identified its projected
annual hiring estimates on the basis of available funding levels and its institutional
capacity to support additional staff and not on the existing backlog or the expected patent application workload.”

Unlike the federal government that runs it, the agency in charge of processing these
intellectual property claims … the meat and potatoes of the information economy … can’t run a deficit.

The GAO found that from 2002 through 2006, one patent examiner left for nearly every two the agency hired. “This represents a significant loss to the agency because 70 percent of those who left had been at the agency for less than 5 years and new patent examiners are primarily responsible for the actions that remove applications from the backlog.”

That’s right, the new kids on the block are the worker bees who process most of the patents.

So why are the recently hired also the ones leaving? In the best Dilbert tradition, the
bosses in the Patent office seem to live in a world apart.

The GAO asked USPTO management and they said “patent examiners leave the agency primarily for personal reasons, such as the job not being a good fit or family reasons.”

“In contrast,” (read, the fact of the matter is) “67 percent of patent examiners
identified the agency’s production goals as one of the primary reasons examiners may choose to leave USPTO.”

“These production goals are based on the number of applications patent examiners must complete biweekly and have not been adjusted to reflect the complexity of patent applications since 1976,” the GAO reported.

In fact, 70 percent of patent examiners reported working unpaid overtime during the past year, in order to meet their production goals. (As someone who is part of a down-sized workforce now expected to produce an up-sized product, in print and online and without the lure of any equity stake to supplement my natural motivation toward, um, excellence, I share their pain.)

Management says it has tried “a variety of retention flexibilities such as a special pay
rate, performance bonuses, flexible work schedules, and a telework program to encourage patent examiners to stay with the agency.” What, no free cafeteria?

And what were the most effective retention strategies? Compensation. Duh. And an “enhanced work environment.” No word if that involved some changes in who is minding the shop.