[E-trademarks] PTO abandoning remote work? Note Federal telework Act

[Catherine Goe]

There's more than meets the eye here.  See the link below for "History,
Legislation & Reports" from U.S. Office of Personnel Management re: the
Federal telework Act.
Born of the invention of enabling technology.  Note long History, rationale
and benefits sought, e.g., cost cutting..
Congressional action required to negate legislation which is the
apparent intent of the Executive Order?
And, assuming there are grounds to challenge the Executive Order, who
could/would bring such an action?
Cat Goe, TM Paralegal

https://www.opm.gov/telework/history-legislation-reports/


---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Dan Feigelson via E-trademarks <e-trademarks at oppedahl-lists.com>
Date: Tue, Jan 21, 2025 at 3:08 PM
Subject: Re: [E-trademarks] PTO abandoning remote work?
To: For trademark practitioners. This is not for laypersons to seek legal
advice. <e-trademarks at oppedahl-lists.com>
Cc: Dan Feigelson <djf at iliplaw.com>


I don't do TM work (not sure how I got on this list), but I can say that
from the patent side, they completely screwed up with the offices in
Detroit, Denver and San Jose.

What they SHOULD have done, and SHOULD do, is assign the entirety of each
art unit to one of their physical offices, and require employees to
physically show up for work. It would vastly improve examination quality.
For example, all of group 1600 (which examines inter alia pharmaceuticals)
should be physically in the same office. I don't care if it's Alexandria or
one of the other three, but put them all in one physical office. It would
improve training, and it would allow for better retention of institutional
memory, which would lead to more uniform and better examination.

That's not what they did, and I doubt that's what they're going to do. I
suspect the bean counters look only at the cost of rent of physical office
space, and not at the cost to the public of poor patent examination (a cost
which is difficult to quantify in any event). And as mentioned earlier in
this thread, there's the union, which opposes any changes, and people who
don't want to move, which is understandable in the short-term, but not
something the PTO should be factoring in. (It's great to be a monopoly and
not have to worry about whether or not you're giving the public you serve
the best possible service.)

No idea if the same can be said for TM examination.

Dan

On Tue, Jan 21, 2025 at 9:25 PM Edward Timberlake via E-trademarks <
e-trademarks at oppedahl-lists.com> wrote:

> Also, for anybody not familiar:
>
> The word "telework" perhaps tends to bring to mind a situation where
> there's a physical building that can house all of the employees but where
> (at least some of) the employees may have the option of working from
> elsewhere.
>
> The USPTO has no such building.
>
> If all of the employees were required physically to come to Alexandria,
> there'd be nowhere for (most of) them to work.
>
>
> --
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