[E-trademarks] [External Sender] Another wrinkle to the "buyout"--does the administration have the ability to pay the workers who resign?

Wed Jan 29 23:20:37 UTC 2025

Welp, once again it turns out governing is nothing but a pain in the butt when you’re trying to rule by fiat in areas you know nothing about.

Employment lawyers I am seeing are strongly recommending not accepting anything at all right now at face value, and certainly do not accept any kind of buyout/resignation package until there is some or any clarity on whether the administration is in any way compliant with law, existing contracts, existing appropriations, or anything at all. I have a printout of the one my husband got when the blast went out to a lot of the State Dept. yesterday (oh, sorry, the “Deep State” Department) and it is different from the ones going out to other places today.

Also, for some of the announcements from OMB, they clearly came in from the outside because the disseminators didn’t know how to scrub metadata so we know that some of them are direct from the computers of Heritage 2025 folks. Love it or hate it, that’s spectacularly inappropriate.

The suspension or alleged cancellation of the WIC program, Headstart, Medicaid, freeze on all grants and loans, foreign aid, holy crap who can keep up with it … all of that is in front of judges right now in part because the president does not for the most part have the authority to impound already allocated funds. So let’s set aside for a second that stopping Medicaid and WIC dead suddenly is just, well, bad, it’s also not possible, as far as I know.

Tellingly, in at least one of the filings I saw in response I think to the suit against the freezes was the DOJ saying this filing is just too soon and it hasn’t had a chance to look at all the documents, what with all the other cases. Uh, guys, this is your picnic. The USPTO didn’t start the fire!

So there should be ZERO confidence in anything and I mean anything at all other than the scattershot rapid-fire alleged freezes and stops and firings and and and are sowing utter chaos and confusion.

Actual people are being actually hurt by all of this and it is wrong.

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 Ronni Jillions via E-trademarks
Sent: Wednesday, January 29, 2025 6:05 PM
To: For trademark practitioners. This is not for laypersons to seek legal advice. <e-trademarks at oppedahl-lists.com>
Cc: Ronni Jillions <Ronni.Jillions at FisherBroyles.com>
Subject: Re: [E-trademarks] [External Sender] Another wrinkle to the "buyout"--does the administration have the ability to pay the workers who resign?

EXTERNAL EMAIL
This is from someone in the PTO examining corps: The offer was not to put people on administrative leave.  If they resign, they still have to work until the end of the FY.  If they don’t, they can be fired.  No lump sum payout or package was offered.

Ronni

Ms. Ronni S. Jillions
Admitted to practice in Washington DC and
before the United States Patent and Trademark Office
Partner
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From: E-trademarks <e-trademarks-bounces at oppedahl-lists.com<mailto:e-trademarks-bounces at oppedahl-lists.com>> On Behalf Of Kevin Grierson via E-trademarks
Sent: Wednesday, January 29, 2025 6:01 PM
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: Kevin Grierson <kgrierson at cm.law<mailto:kgrierson at cm.law>>
Subject: [External Sender][E-trademarks] Another wrinkle to the "buyout"--does the administration have the ability to pay the workers who resign?

Sen. Kaine on the Senate floor claimed "The President has no authority to make that offer. There's no budget line item to pay people who are not showing up for work...If you accept that offer and resign, he'll stiff you..."

Obviously there’s politics at play here, but this does raise the question: can the administration simply put everyone on paid administrative leave if they offer their resignation?  If not, what happens to the PTO workers who resign?  Are they just out of a job (and with no “severance” pay)?

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