[E-trademarks] PTO abandoning remote work?

Tue Jan 21 19:16:26 UTC 2025

Are you suggesting that an unintended consequence of a shoot-from-the-hip
Executive Order might be to shut down the very agency that protects U.S.
intellectual property (and allegedly makes the United States competitive
among the nations)?

“I’m shocked.”

Thank you,

Mark

Mark S. Kaufman

Kaufman & Kahn, LLP

Email:  kaufman at kaufmankahn.com

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*From:* E-trademarks <e-trademarks-bounces at oppedahl-lists.com> *On Behalf
Of *Rachael Dickson via E-trademarks
*Sent:* Tuesday, January 21, 2025 2:08 PM
*To:* For trademark practitioners. This is not for laypersons to seek legal
advice. <e-trademarks at oppedahl-lists.com>
*Cc:* Rachael Dickson <rachael at catalyticlaw.com>
*Subject:* Re: [E-trademarks] PTO abandoning remote work?

Regarding a hiring freeze: I do not know what the USPTO is doing now, but
when I started as a trademark examining attorney in January 2017, I was
rushed through the hiring process along with tons of others (way more than
they usually would hire at once) and started work a few days before the
inauguration. This was done purposefully to get as many people working
there before a hiring freeze went through. I strongly suspect they did
something similar this year as soon as the election results were clear.

*More telework statistics to answer a few people's questions: *

According to the USPTO's 2023 Telework report (there doesn't seem to be a
2024 one yet), 96% of USPTO employees are enrolled in a telework program -
12,894 in all.

   - 11,560 of those work from home 5 days a week; 1,220 teleworkers work
   from home 1-4 days per week.
   - Total trademark teleworkers: 1,118
   - -99.91% of eligible trademark positions are teleworking
   - Total patent teleworkers: 9,977
   - -95.58% of eligible patent positions are teleworking.

https://www.uspto.gov/sites/default/files/documents/TAR_2023.pdf

On Tue, Jan 21, 2025 at 1:13 PM Laura Geyer via E-trademarks <
e-trademarks at oppedahl-lists.com> wrote:

The important thing is that for many of these Executive Orders, many of
which are either hilariously unconstitutional or violate any one of a
number of existing laws that can’t be changed this way, the jury will be
out for a bit on whether this or that one is enforceable. The remote work
one is, I understand from friends and relations, being challenged by the
unions for the moment.

Speaking as someone who is married to, friends with, related to, and
surrounded by good and faithful government employees, we’re all watching to
see which of the straight-up pointlessly abusive/vexatious (and entirely
unrelated to “efficiency” as we all know, because the “professionals”
brought on board to make these recommendations or changes like to say the
inside part out loud) are actually going to stick.

Will their pensions be, in fact, cut or new requirements be imposed that
add years to planned retirement?  Will remote work be ended and how
widespread will that enforcement be? Will it be like last time when mass
numbers of employees in certain targeted agencies had their places of work
moved thousands of miles away, again, as was enunciated at the time, to
force people to retire or quit unless willing to up sticks and relocate to
the middle of nowhere? I’ve got a card with a running list of the changes
about to be or promised to be inflicted on federal employees (again, many
of which are intentionally abusive and have no other goal or purpose) so I
can keep up with it. It’s insanity.

But what else could one have expected? When people tell you who they are,
you gotta believe them.

*Laura Talley Geyer* | *Of Counsel*

*ND Galli Law LLC*

1200 G Street, N.W., Ste 800

Washington, DC 20005

Tel: (202) 599-9019 (direct)

https://ndgallilaw.com/laura-geyer/

https://ndgallilaw.com/

*From:* E-trademarks <e-trademarks-bounces at oppedahl-lists.com> *On Behalf
Of *Rick Bigelow via E-trademarks
*Sent:* Tuesday, January 21, 2025 10:19 AM
*To:* For trademark practitioners. This is not for laypersons to seek legal
advice. <e-trademarks at oppedahl-lists.com>
*Cc:* Rick Bigelow <bigelowpatentlaw at gmail.com>
*Subject:* Re: [E-trademarks] PTO abandoning remote work?

*EXTERNAL EMAIL*

I've received emails from examiners on Saturdays and Sundays which tells me
they were working remotely. If they were in the office, the emails probably
would not have been sent until Monday.

I think remote working can be a plus if managed correctly.  My daughter was
hired as a VP for an international company full time work remotely.

On Tue, Jan 21, 2025 at 10:15 AM Michael D. Steger via E-trademarks <
e-trademarks at oppedahl-lists.com> wrote:

I don’t think they have offices for anywhere close to all of the examiners.

My brother in law is an attorney for another agency, and his section has
not had offices for a several years, so there is no “office” for them to go
back to work.

Mike Steger

*From:* E-trademarks <e-trademarks-bounces at oppedahl-lists.com> *On Behalf
Of *Kevin Grierson via E-trademarks
*Sent:* Tuesday, January 21, 2025 10:09 AM
*To:* For trademark practitioners. This is not for laypersons to seek legal
advice. <e-trademarks at oppedahl-lists.com>
*Cc:* Kevin Grierson <kgrierson at cm.law>
*Subject:* [E-trademarks] PTO abandoning remote work?

Saw a post from Professor Dickson yesterday about Trump’s executive order
ending remote work for federal employees.  Seems to be some wiggle room in
it, but wow, aren’t there a ton of examiners working remotely?  I can’t
imagine all of them moving to DC.

https://www.npr.org/2025/01/20/nx-s1-5268852/trump-telework-executive-order-federal-workers

*Kevin Grierson <https://www.culhanemeadows.com/attorney/kevin-grierson/>*

Partner

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