[Patentpractice] taking much longer for a response to a non-final office action to get entered and forwarded to the Examiner?

[Carl Oppedahl]

Hello folks.  Is it just me, or is it recently taking much longer for a 
response to a non-final office action to get entered and forwarded to 
the Examiner?

And not just responses to non-final office actions?

Also taking much longer for a response to a final office action to get 
entered and forwarded to the Examiner?

In a recent case in Tech Center 2900, I filed a response on September 25 
and it did not get forwarded to the Examiner until October 8.  It took 
13 days to get forwarded.

In other recent cases in other Tech Centers, I have seen forwarding 
delays of 7 to 10 days.

I fear that this is getting to be the new normal.

In the old days it was commonplace that a response would get forwarded 
to the Examiner promptly -- within two or three days. Sometimes it would 
only take one day.

The job title of the people who do this "entering and forwarding" is LIE 
-- legal instruments examiner.

I can imagine that one factor explaining the new delays might be due to 
September 30 having passed and some LIEs who accepted the "fork in the 
road" are now gone.  Although I guess many of the USPTO people who 
accepted the "fork in the road" would have ceased work long before 
September 30.

I can imagine that this new long delay in forwarding to the Examiner 
might be different from one Tech Center to the next.  One Tech Center 
might have lost more LIEs than another.

Is it just me, or have others also been seeing new delays in forwarding 
to the Examiner?

Carl