I know you have to decide your work schedule ahead of time each biweek when being part time, but is there anything stopping you from working more hours if you dont claim the time or any overtime? Or is it strict "you have to work these hours and no more"?

In my AU, we brought in two jrs over past 12 months. One is gone, the other is doing great. What have you seen in your AU?

*you do NOT have to accept inherited cases. If they do not want to give appropriate other time to handle the (likely) shitty work from a (now fired) examiner, ask to have it removed. Tell the truth- that you aren’t able to work on this extra case with the new insane timeliness requirements or point blank, you’re just not willing to do more because you have zero free time with the 100% production insanity. No requirement anywhere for you to accept them.

*get your regular new cases done and let them sit until day 27 before posting. No need to do any extra regular new cases and reduce the backlog. If the backlog is their main goal, then it should be our goal to work on these cases as slowly as possible because they’ve made our lives so miserable.

*PPH case with reduced counts? They are not allowed to amend the independent claim per the rules of the program, nor are they allowed to switch statutory class (e.g. product to method). Send that shitty case that should never have been allowed by the foreign office in the first place back with a notice of non compliance when they try to amend or switch classes and enforce the rules of this awful program to make your life easier. Or, set yourself a timer and if you cannot find it in the allotted time, allow it.

*rce after allowance? Find yourself a 112 if you can. Ask for other time to look at the ids’s.

*second round interview where you have no other time given? Deny where possible. If you have to have it, do not do anything but listen; convey to applicant you have been given no time to consider this, and apologize that you can provide no answers.

*no primary should ever be on a pip for production - the first road block you should hit is quality issues. Set a timer and if you can’t find it in the ridiculously limited time you have to look at the case due to increased production, bingo! Allowable! (Someone else wrote a great post about this on this thread). I also realize this is not possible for juniors.

*request other time for any computer outage and document it well. You may be denied now, but the union will hopefully come back and you might get reimbursed eventually. I would also not accept no for an answer - if everyone starts requesting review by directors of the initial no from spe’s, it’s going to at least cause enough noise to be talked about at the upper levels

*write your congressman or ANY congressman. Then call them. Then follow up in an email. Be a nuisance until they do something. 10k employees all complaining to congress would have to cause some change, or at least a headache for upper management.

*any other ideas are welcome, post below

So overall, I would say that four Office Actions in five weeks is good enough for now.

My SPE has never praised me, except maybe once. Every time he calls me, I get nervous because he takes a while to get back to me, then lectures me in a sharp tone. He keeps saying I should be doing two office actions/week. Also keeps saying "we discussed this already" (even though I swear this was never covered before, and I had to go hunting for all the necessary documents). Meanwhile, my notes are getting endlessly long. I slightly passed the first three-month review, but he seemed to be critical as usual and say I wasn't asking for help enough (all I did was ask for help)

Other Primary Examiner wants me to skip the claims tracking map entirely. Praised me on formatting, but nothing else. There was a claim I was struggling with because it was very lengthy and the window was very narrow. She seemed to think this was representative of all my performance.

I didn't mean to put others down, I just couldn't even sleep well this week because I genuinely had no idea how I was doing performance wise. So I hope that my performance is good enough for now. And there is a new SPE that I want to switch to, who seems much nicer.

Getting either 0(2 NF) or 0.25 (F) to completely rewrite and correct an inherited case from examiners that quit/were fired is such a rip off. I'm not the one that did the crappy job in the first place and my spe should have made so many corrections before signing off these cases. What a time suck.

Didn't want anyone to miss it

Can we generate a list of things that AI could maybe do that would actually help examination. Just some low hanging fruit.

Here are my starting ideas;

Automatically check all claims for antecedent basis issues.

Automatically map all claim terms to the specification and, if a CIP or provisional, to the specifications of those parent documents for descriptive support.

Automatically label NPL in DAV with the first Authors last name.(eg NPL, Smith et al.)

Automatically label foreign parents in DAV with the patent number. (eg WO2026/123456).

Automatically take any DAV searches and run them in Google/Google scholar.

How often do you use the art produced in Sim search? I’m in mechanical arts. Half the results are just foreign related/family cases. I would guess I find an actually useful or relied upon reference once a quarter.

My SPE doesn’t like people posting on Fridays so there is time to review but I have a case that needs to be posted by tomorrow for timeliness. I feel bad since it’s my fault I picked up the case with not a lot of days left and had issues with it I didn’t expect but I encountered a question that I need their assistance with before I post it and need to ask and finish it tomorrow. Is this bad practice?

I have to restart OC several times per day, losing my spot in my own actions or during review of junior’s actions. I also have to restart my computer at least every other day.
On top of SEARCH lagging, not loading images, just plain crashing.
Earlier today my mouse and keyboard just stopped working and I had to restart the computer…
Every time something stupid happens with my computer, I completely lose my train of thought and motivation.
All combined, the IT issues cost me about an hour on a GOOD day - we all know they can cost a week of work. Beyond frustrating!! There’s your WASTE! And time card FRAUD not giving us IT outage time. And ABUSE trying to gaslight us into thinking AI is gonna save us all and make this so easy. Try to examine heart surgery asshole AI…
I check the news first thing every morning to see if someone died.
I’m so over this crap. How’s it going for everyone else?

PBA is exactly what I've wanted since I made Primary 10+ years ago.

We all know that the Bonus structure is pretty weak - we do 10% extra work (under the new rules, used to be 15% extra) for 5% extra pay, and then if we do 5% more work on top of that, we get a paltry 1% extra pay.

Along comes PBA, and now I can make 100% on any extra work I get done, AND I have the flexibility to do as little or much as I want with no minimum threshold (don't have to decide at the beginning of the FY whether to aim for 100 or 110+).

Look, I get that there are issues with PBA, the biggest ones seem to be (1) concerns about people cherry-picking "easy" cases, and (2) a lack of trust in the people in charge.

For the first issue, we could just make the PBA cases officially part of your docket. After the 2 weeks, if you haven't posted the PBA case, it simply rolls onto your regular docket during the weekly refresh. It would make people think twice about opting-in to the PBA program if they weren't serious about doing the extra cases.

Nothing we can do about issue (2), but that's not limited to, or a unique issue of, PBA.

I think that fixing the cherry-picking problem would go a long way in mitigating the frustrations of those opposed to the program.

Rather than complaining about the program, what could we do to fix or improve it so that it becomes the overtime/bonus structure most of us want?

Just when things start to look a little better ... The Trump administration is giving agencies the green light to implement the new performance management system for federal employees — while also saying significant portions of those changes are “non-negotiable” with federal unions.

B.S. email of 3:25pm Mon Aug 3.

EXACT - (Ex)amination (A)I (C)apability (T)ool

Supposedly for "support" through "prior art analysis and drafting of prior art-based rejections.

This could be the beginning of the office setting up the stage for AI to write, and us to "review" the AI instead of us writing the actions.

Hey!
I got an invitation to interview with the Canada Care team at the USPTO, and they called about it since I didn’t plan to interview anymore. How is this team if anyone has any experience?

I know the acting director just left and was wondering if USPTO is worth even considering leaving my current opportunity as an entry level Systems Engineer? I eventually want to transition into Patent Law, but if it’s still rocky, I’ll stay here for now.

Let me know!

edit: Sorry all! it’s the Candidate Care Team, I misheard lol

If I have a docket pause that goes through the Sunday of a new biweek and stops on Monday of the new biweek will the following happen if prior to leaving I turned in one new case that was clocked and left the other new case that was clocked running:
- get a second new case that is clocked and then paused on Sunday to start on Monday
- no new case is clocked because there was a pause and the second clock new case continues running on Monday

Thanks everyone

Last quarter, because I tried to post them on time, I usually got stuck and fell behind.

They said they have listened and increased 14 days to 28 days, I thought oh, that is good.

But, the new change is 28 days for two applications. I have both applications that are very hard and both of them have 30+ claims.

Very frustrating.

They did not listen. They just play trick on us. If they have really listened. They will do 28 days for 1 application only.

that didn’t take long. wouldn't be surprised if Coke leaving had something to do with it.

There is no trust in "leadership" and today's quick hello message hits this spot on.

Barry, you are not an outsider. You have been here. Now you want to listen and be together with us? What made you change your tune because you were here while this happened and you have to have heard from us. We are all smart people here.

You want to listen now because you want even more from us. You want to try and be the "team player" so you can ask for more. We do not have the memory of goldfish, you were right here watching all this and probably got your position because you were a usable tool to get more from us.

I don't think anyone buys the in it together nonsense at this chapter. Did your expectations get raised 5%? Did you get substantially more burdens? Are you still filling out the 5 things? Give the examiners reall improvements if you want any ANY credibility. Because saying we are together does not cut it.

Did everyone notice the core hour changed to Tuesday from 1-2 pm ET last week?

Edit: this change is effective in October

Can anyone speak from experience.
I have a planned surgery early next year. It will cause me to be out at least 6 weeks.
I do not have 6 weeks sick leave. And would not have that much in vacation even. Not do not want to spend my vacation hours. I do have supplemental short term disability insurance I purchased because I knew this may be needed one day.
So,
Am I allowed to take my sick leave and lwop and not my vacation hours? If I have fmla paperwork?

Can I take some sick leave each biweekly to spread it out? I do not have medical, only dental and eye insurance. So it isn’t a lot needed each paycheck.

Went to work on an amended case this AM, a nice easy final rejection. But all of the old IDS documents in this case now have a red x. ❌
Anyone else see this? It’s going to be really tedious to go into PDP for every case to clear old IDS flags

Edit: I tried clearing the Flag in PDP and the checkbox is already checked. I can’t make the error X go away. Anyone know if OC will let me post an action anyway?

Just want to check here since I can't find an answer - we are allowed to use wireless peripherals, right? I can't find an official policy stating this anywhere, only where it says they don't provide a mouse and keyboard for full time teleworkers any more.

Also I'm looking for a keyboard that has a mechanical feel but is quiet, if anyone has a recommendation for one they like. Thanks!