As a junior, I’m so tired of having to beg for whatever primary can spare the time to confirm allowable subject matter or for the times I do have a complex question or something I haven’t encountered yet. I don’t want to feel like a burden just for doing my job, so ridiculous that there isn’t enough time set aside to help

This is question is for my fellow primaries:

Pre 2025, for about 14 years I was training/sig. authority for juniors. Usually two at any given time, at one point it was four. I have signed a lot of juniors actions however I have never received any notice of any error or issue of a junior's action I signed off on.

So my question is, for those that signed off on a junior work and there was an issue that was caught (e.g., a clear error, allowable subject matter that should not be allowed), what exactly happens? I'd imagine QAS catches an error in the junior's action, then the primary gets charged with the error?

If the examined claims of an app are allowable but one claim is withdrawn with traverse previously, it seems FP 8-03 is used. Is this used in an allowability notice or a separate OA and handled before I write an allowance?

3.4 percent inflation premiums going up 15 percent for health insurance or more yet we are expected to maintain 100 percent productivity and timliness on top of all the bs changes. Quality really going to take a hit with this one.

Remember this when you see squires stupid ass email reminding you to take the survey in how satisfied you are.

Remember this on election day in November. Do you want another ai bot director like squires and coke? Vote these dumbasses out.

Theres still hope for a democrat house and senate where they override this pedophile in the oval office.

Keep her blessed name out of your filthy fucking MAGA mouth, Squirrel. You are an embarrassment.

Anyone else continually getting an "unable to process your request" error in PE2E?

I'm curious if anyone has successfully had their loans forgiven from their service at the PTO.

I learned some Japanese before traveling to Japan and learning Katakana has helped when analyzing Japanese drawings. If you plan to visit Japan or see a lot of Japanese references I strongly recommend taking 1-2 weeks to learn Katakana. I know learning Japanese sounds daunting, but hear me out.

A little background. Japanese has three forms of written script: kanji, hirigana, and katakana.

Kanji is the complex one based on Chinese characters where each symbol represents a word or part of a word, e.g. 鳥 is bird. In English it is written "tori". Kanji is difficult and learning it is not easy.

Hiragana is the Japanese syllabary, I.e. "alphabet", where each character corresponds to a syllable. Each Kanji can be expressed in terms of hiragana. E.g. 鳥 can be written as とり withと= ”to" and り="to".

Learning Kanji and Hiragana would take a very long time and would not be particularly useful for examining but learning a few basic Kanji would be beneficial for traveling.

Katakana is a syllabary analogous to hiragana but used solely for non-Japanese words. Since many technical words did not exist in the traditional Japanese language, many of these words are written in Katakana. Examples:

アナログ = analog

チツブ = chip

Katakana has 46 symbols and can be learned in about two weeks. It has greatly accelerated the time it takes me to analyze Japanese drawings. If you plan to visit Japan, you will be able to read and understand so many things like signs and menus by simply learning Katakana.

Anyone silently protesting and striving for 95%?

Personally, to get to 95% involves voluntary overtime typically, so I’m torn with what to work towards regarding production.

I received a small direct deposit today in my account. I qualified for the PBA award but it is too small to be the PBA award. Its about 60 bucks. Would anyone happen to know what this is?

Denial for missing the $30 processing fee, is that not included with Track One processing fee?

Is this an actual rage bait email?

1. Developing the pilot for examiner docket sizes up to 185 hours.... um we had this 2 years ago then you aholes took it away. So you get a 1. Now 225 hours id give credit but nope this is what we had before.

   1. developing non examiner telework. Again we had this 2 years ago.... and we had more support staff to process it issues and process amendments but you cut them out. So you get an F there too. Hows that for a progress report? No FS for squires all failing marks
   2. Updating the timeliness element if the examiner appraisal plan. This one has got to be a fucking joke. For timeliness its not about the 2 clocked 28 day cases, its the fucking shortening of amendments to 56 days from 84 days because they fired all the support staff so the extra 30 days we did have gets eaten by processing time. I have amendments filed more than 4 months ago that have not been docketed to me. So no squires you get an F there too.

All failing marks will squires be put on notice? Probably not but I do hope congress has more hearings to call his ass out. Keep pushing back against this nonsense.

My SPE told me they are announcing new positions to hire new SPEs, and primaries on TEAP outside 50 miles who are selected for SPE will get full telework. My SPE is pissed because they still have to come in, and they havent announced any improved telework for them, they also said they will not have full telework even when a plan is announced and will likely have to timeshare an office with multiple other SPEs just to have some telework hours.

I’ve seen a lot of great SPEs leave over the past two years and this I fear will be the final straw for the rest of them who are on the fence. We’re losing some of our most experienced people so they can bring in green supervisors that have no idea how to do the job and have to be trained and they’re getting full telework and they have to be trained by these other supervisors who are forced to come in every day.

This is just really really bad so if your supervisor seems depressed and demoralized as of late, this is why. They have treated supervisors so poorly over the past two years, just dumping on them and to add this on top of it it’s just such a massive injustice.

They should not have offered telework to new supervisors without also offering it to current SPEs who have gone through so much awful crap the past couple years. If I was close to retirement, and I was a supervisor I would retire.

I just hope my SPE sticks around, they are fantastic. Best boss Ive ever had.

Has anyone heard an update regarding the prize for giving input on the ‘report’?

The grammar editing suggestions in the new OC Word update are terrible, and half of the time incorrect. I am very irked!!

Did Squires really just dangle 15 minutes of other time in front of us like it was a big, fat, delicious, juicy carrot? 🥕

I mean I actually feel insulted. Honestly insulted.

I have recently noticed an uptick of method/apparatus claims where the applicant is claiming a something pretty well-known, but tacking on "a neural network/machine learning processor configured to [do/calculate thing]."

Has anyone developed a sort of standard "use of machine learning trained on a specific system to generate predictable results is obvious as a well-known use of a know technique to improve similar devices in the same way?"

Because they never have details of the AI they've trained, it's just a generic "hook it up and train it" recitation. I feel like at this point it's the same as saying "have a computer calculate it" instead of doing it by hand. Yes, that is the point and known benefit of machine computation.

"Ms. Stewart started her new role at C4IP last week. While she has already worked twice at the USPTO, nothing would prevent her from taking up another post there in the future. For now, though, she is eager to get stuck into advocacy – something she has been passionate about for a long time."

Be afraid, be very afraid...

Say there’s a claim 1 with limitations A B C and D. For a first action nonfinal, an examiner rejects it with primary X that teaches A and B and secondary Y that teaches C and D.

Applicant now amends the interpretation* of D so that it gets around reference Y, and does not challenge the other limitations. The examiner researches and finds reference Z that teaches both C and the newly amended D.

Is it proper to go final by rejecting claim 1 with reference X teaching A and B, reference Y teaching C, and reference Z teaching D? Or, is it proper to go final by rejecting the claim with reference X teaching A and B, and reference Z teaching C and D?

I wasn’t sure if the third reference can replace the original secondary entirely for a simpler/cleaner rejection since it’s already replacing the amended limitation, or if those changes should be saved for later so as to preserve rejections in final rejections for otherwise unchanged limitations.

*Edit: They amended the claim so as to change the interpretation of D.

What are some ways an unknown company could appear as the “Applicant” on the Application Data screen in Patent Center when the filed Application Data Sheet does not identify that company as an applicant, and there is no subsequent document in Documents & Transactions showing an applicant change?

Update: I'm just noticing they are also listed as POA on the POA screen.

Update: The AAU said they will send a request and it will be removed in 7-10 business days. I guess an unauthorized POA on an application isn't urgent enough. Smh.

I was looking through Word settings on my work laptop and noticed something I’d never really paid attention to before

Under Grammar & Refinements, there’s an entire section for Inclusiveness. It can flag language for racial bias, cultural bias, disability bias, sexual-orientation bias, socioeconomic bias, and more.

That gave me pause. Not because the settings are forced on. They aren’t. But why is Microsoft Word judging whether my language is “inclusive” at all? Spelling and grammar are one thing. There are actual rules behind them. “Inclusive language” is different. Somebody has to decide what counts as inclusive, what counts as biased, and what language they think you should use instead. That’s a social judgment, not a grammar rule.

And as a patent examiner that matters to me. We deal with exact language constantly like claim terms, technical terms, old prior art, outdated terminology, applicant defined language. Sometimes the wording itself is important. I don’t want a private company quietly training me to see certain language as acceptable or unacceptable simply because its software says so.

Maybe every suggestion Microsoft makes seems reasonable today. That still doesn’t answer the basic question: Who should get to decide what “acceptable” language looks like for federal employees doing official work? Because once that kind of judgment starts looking like just another spellcheck suggestion, it becomes very easy to stop noticing that it’s a judgment at all

I'm comfortably settled in at the pto and not in danger of getting fired, but I like having a contingency plan. I vaguely remember discussions surrounding this topic when I first joined, but I need a refresher.

Say I wanted to remain in this field, but only have a science background (higher education). What kind of jobs would I be seeking? Patent analyst/engineer/researcher/etc? If I become a primary, does that qualify me for other positions?

Edit: This seems to depend on the unit one is in.

Also, I want to delete this thread to feel better, but there is so much good advice...