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

Tue Jan 21 21:17:28 UTC 2025

The current administration has issued an executive order that appears to directly contradict the 14th amendment’s birthright citizenship clause, so I don’t think the fact that the PTO’s telework system is enabled by legislation is going to stop them.  That said, I would guess that either the union or an individual who was told they couldn’t telework any more would have standing to sue to stop the order, but given the squishiness of the actual order, I’m not sure it will be actionable until someone is told they can’t work from home any more.

Kevin Grierson

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From: E-trademarks <e-trademarks-bounces at oppedahl-lists.com> On Behalf Of Catherine Goe via E-trademarks
Sent: Tuesday, January 21, 2025 3:52 PM
To: for trademark practitioners <e-trademarks at oppedahl-lists.com>
Cc: Catherine Goe <goecat at gmail.com>
Subject: [E-trademarks] PTO abandoning remote work? Note Federal telework Act

EXTERNAL EMAIL
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<mailto: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<mailto:e-trademarks at oppedahl-lists.com>>
Cc: Dan Feigelson <djf at iliplaw.com<mailto: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<mailto: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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