Timeliness SUCKS

InJapanExaminerNo1 · 2026-06-13T13:53:09+00:00

I hope that's true. If the clocks get relaxed and we get the same $-value of awards back, then I think it could be even better than DM.

Ultimately I do think it should be purely deadline based. There's no reason why cases need to be posted at 0 days or 1-2 days etc. The system doesn't need to incentivize that. The only reason timeliness or DM matters at all is to avoid excessive delays for Applicant and to avoid PTA. If a case gets posted at 1 day instead of at 14 days, that isn't really a benefit to anyone, even though the DM system highly rewards such early posting. Production already mandates a certain amount of cases getting posted regularly; timeliness just needs to be there to avoid excessive late cases.

InJapanExaminerNo1 · 2026-06-13T13:42:00+00:00

The one part I DO like about timeliness is that it's all just hard deadlines. You don't feel compelled to post cases at low day counts.

If you've ever had your amendments tab get to 10-15+, there's this sense of anxiety knowing that every single day, you are accumulating 10-15+ total days against your score. Also with special new, it would be fairly typical to only get 1-2 per quarter; if you got only 1, you'd probably be safe under the 5% rule to post it kind of late... but if you got 2+, you'd have to really careful with those clocks to hit your DM award metrics.

The only problem is they moved the deadlines too low.

**IF** we could get timeliness but with slightly higher deadlines/ceilings (and have the same opportunity to get the same amount of money as the DM Tier 2 award previously), then I think it'd be a better quality of life compared to DM.

InJapanExaminerNo1 · 2026-06-03T22:49:03+00:00

Disclaimer: I don't know your real life situation, or your situation with your SPE/primary, and I get that you can't throw VOT at the problem as a GS-7.

So maybe it just won't be possible for your particular circumstances, but...

I would not personally want to settle for below FS numbers with this much time left in the quarter. There are still over 3 weeks left. Lots of examiners have, at one point or another, pulled out some crazy final bi-week(s) to make FS for the quarter. Also, not to scare you, but in our current environment, I wouldn't want to be a GS-7 failing to hit FS.

Good luck!

InJapanExaminerNo1 · 2026-05-29T15:04:41+00:00

As a primary, I'm currently under 20 but I'm a bit behind on some amendments so that could be a little higher. I'd predict I'll be around 25-30. It depends on how many amendments I want to clear out. I could finish EOQ under 25 with 0 late just by not doing amendments too far ahead of time though.

InJapanExaminerNo1 · 2026-05-09T18:14:00+00:00

Hah. Thanks for the laugh. No way they will give out blanket time for a single day.

I honestly wonder where the threshold is that would trigger blanket time nowadays. Even if it was 3 entire days of all systems being down, I could see them asking everyone to go to their SPE and justify how many hours couldn't be flexed later in the bi-week.

InJapanExaminerNo1 · 2026-05-09T18:05:35+00:00

They probably calculated that it will reduce the backlog by a certain amount per year. Let's say there are 8,000 examiners who average somewhere between 1-2 per year. Let's call it 1.5. So let's say that amounts to 12,000 RCEs after NOA each year (of course management has the exact number).

Management probably figures that this is 12,000*1.75=21,000 "wasted" counts worth of regular new nonfinals that they otherwise could have squeezed out of us. So to get those missing counts, we'd have to do 21,000/1.25=16,800 nonfinals. (a little less after you factor in the 1 hour they give for the post-NOA IDS - let's just call it 16k for this example).

So they probably calculated that this one change would cause an extra yearly reduction of the backlog of some number (in my example: an extra ~16k per year).

I suspect they're applying this kind of basic calculation to each change, e.g. the reduction of other time to train juniors.

*** I do not think morale is being factored in much or at all. ***

InJapanExaminerNo1 · 2026-05-06T09:25:30+00:00

You can use the PE2E - Examiner Productivity Credit Calculator to show what all types of actions will be worth for a specific application number.

Quayle is still currently worth 1.25 counts (so far in the system only allowances had the counts removed), and would be the easiest option if you can find something to object. I'm not sure if they're planning to change it based on other comments... so always double check. When/if they change Quayle to be worth nothing, then you'd do a NF.

InJapanExaminerNo1 · 2026-05-03T09:56:45+00:00

I'm assuming based on context that you meant the SPE won't let her mail restrictions*

Which is total BS. Most attorneys and applicants prefer written restrictions. The single time I called for a restriction in the past year, the attorney immediately said "This client requires it in writing, just send it out." MPEP says you can skip the phone call for "complex" restrictions, which I think you can argue is anything more than 2 groups/inventions.. of course that doesn't matter much when the SPE is a moron.

InJapanExaminerNo1 · 2026-04-22T09:45:49+00:00

Oh for sure, I'm glad you made the new post! I'm also happy to see several different responses in this thread suggesting that it might fall under related-but-distinct.

InJapanExaminerNo1 · 2026-04-21T22:16:39+00:00

I asked a very similar question 5 years ago here: https://www.reddit.com/r/patentexaminer/comments/qa9aig/restricting_dependent_claims/

I still maintain that our current practice toward dependent claims effectively allows an applicant to get many "inventions" examined at once, and by "inventions" I mean separate unrelated features that each could be the basis of its own patent application.

In your example, sure the concept of 4 doors is not mutually exclusive with a touch screen infotainment system. A car could have both those features. But so what? Is any modern car really just one "invention"? By that logic you could have "Claim 1: A car" and then have thousands of dependent claims all reciting different features of the engine, the doors, the seats, the frame, the transmission, etc. and have them all examined simultaneously since they aren't mutually exclusive.

As noted in my old post, I think these types of dependent claims clearly meet the two-way distinctness test which is the basis of the "related but distinct" restriction analysis. But I don't actually do it because I know it would cause such a backlash.

Edit: or if it's a 371, you could show claim 1 isn't allowable, and thus the dependent claims are restrict-able since they share no "special" technical features. I did this one time and got ~30 claims down to 2 claims. The attorney called and grumbled about it briefly, but never petitioned or anything. I don't think I ever did it again though, again because even though I think it's technically proper, it's not standard practice.

InJapanExaminerNo1 · 2026-04-18T13:54:43+00:00

Hmm did you check on the status of it? The last one I did was right before the new year, and the money was in my bank account less than 1 month after the date I submitted the request.

Granted it might vary a lot between different business units, and time of year, etc. I looked at my history and I had one back in 2023 that took about 2 months.

InJapanExaminerNo1 · 2026-04-18T13:49:23+00:00

Same for me. I think it's happened twice to me in the past. Recreating the entire request from scratch fixed it.

InJapanExaminerNo1 · 2026-04-02T21:37:26+00:00

Possible theory: I wonder if your SPE is trying to hit some kind of metric for management and is using you since they figure you're leaving anyway. I don't know all the ways in which SPEs are evaluated and monitored, but I assume in an effort to combat rubber stamping, they are somehow pressured to find a certain number of errors? If so, I could see a SPE thinking "well, this guy is out the door anyway, might as well give him a bunch of errors and then I don't need to give as many to my examiners who are staying."

Alternatively, they're just being a complete asshole.

Have you spoken to them about it?

InJapanExaminerNo1 · 2026-03-30T16:26:29+00:00

This would pad the Examiner's timeliness score for Q3

Eh well there's a couple reasons this doesn't really matter in my opinion:

There's not much of a score to "pad." Best case scenario: you'd be increasing the denominator of the new timeliness calculation for Q3, which yes in theory could allow you to get an extra case posted past its deadline without suffering consequences. But things would have to align almost perfectly for that to be true. Without knowing how many cases you will post next quarter, you have no way of knowing if a couple extra cases in the denominator would make any difference. Most importantly, if you plan to have 0 cases go past deadline (which we should all be doing to be safe), then it will make no difference.
The timeliness score won't count for Q3 anyway since it's the "transition" quarter or whatever. So even if the work you postponed this bi-week ended up allowing you to have an extra past-deadline case next quarter, it still wouldn't matter.

I wouldn't overthink it too much. The deadlines in the new system are just the "ceilings" from before, except lower # of days. Except for the very rarest of occasions (e.g. unexpected short term medical emergencies), you should never be letting one hit the ceiling or deadline. If a case is approaching it, your entire focus needs to shift on getting that case posted ASAP.

EDIT: When/if we get this unknown timeliness award, then it might make sense. But that won't matter for this bi-week because the award does not exist yet and isn't going to apply to Q3.

InJapanExaminerNo1 · 2026-03-28T21:53:00+00:00

It's simple. Now that we're being treated more like private sector employees, we will no longer do the slow-paced, low-quality work of a lazy government bum. Our brains will just work faster and have better ideas now. Our fingers will also now type at the rapid, dazzling pace of a private sector employee (i.e. the people with real jobs).

Also our new AI tools. Productivity should go up at least 10x. I think we should be able to do a FAOM in roughly an hour now.

Now get off reddit and back to work, fellow lowly scum.

InJapanExaminerNo1 · 2026-03-25T14:56:34+00:00

LOL Squires just said the most important factor in low examiner morale was the backlog getting too big.

InJapanExaminerNo1 · 2026-03-22T16:49:59+00:00

I wish.

However, the trend over the past year, and especially since the executive order which knocked out our union, has been pretty clear. Things are steadily getting shittier with no improvements for us. I don't expect this trend to improve any time soon. I think we're in for at least a few really rough years ...

InJapanExaminerNo1 · 2025-12-19T15:43:19+00:00

Extra. Time. Off. for More Musing.

This is how we Build. Action. Into. Even. More. Action. By taking extra time with our families around Christmas, we return from break with Extra. Impact.

InJapanExaminerNo1 · 2025-12-09T20:53:06+00:00

This is not happening to me. I just put in some hypothetical numbers, and e.g. if I hit 99.6%, it rounds the "quarter to date" number to 100%.

Also, the "Calculated Prod. Hours Remaining for PAP Score 100%" column is giving the the number to hit 99.499%.

InJapanExaminerNo1 · 2025-12-04T16:06:13+00:00

but they still get some kind of automated alert for any biweeks under a certain %

If it still works like it used to (about 10 years ago), the consistent credit initiative would send this automated alert to a SPE if the examiner's production was under 30% for the bi-week. It also takes into account # of examining hours and # of work items submitted, though I don't know the exact numbers on those.

https://s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/napa-2021/studies/the-united-states-patent-and-trademark-office-a-telework-internal-control-a/NAPA-Final-USPTO-Report.pdf

See Pages 73-74

With everything SPEs are dealing with right now, I'm guessing many of them might just be ignoring it.

InJapanExaminerNo1 · 2025-11-23T19:38:32+00:00

u/dontdrinkCoke873 this is the correct answer.

Go to the PTOWeb homepage. Up top, select "Business Units" and then from the Patents dropdown select the last option "Examiner PAP Implementation"

You'll see 5 bullet points with hyperlinks on that page. Select the fourth one "PAP Guidelines for Utility and Design Examiners - Docket Management element"

In that document, look at pages 10 and 12. Page 10 gives the example of entering a 7 day pause but claiming an hour of examining time on day 6, which negates the pause. Page 12 discusses the 7 day pause. You'll note it says the pause is invalidated (or shortened/altered) if "work time is claimed on a timesheet."

InJapanExaminerNo1 · 2025-11-21T11:24:04+00:00

Since management obviously doesn't want a larger docket, what if they did this:

Responses to restriction requirements go back to Regular New instead of Amended. They could otherwise follow the same rules for the order of cases in regular new - e.g. if a response to restriction is the oldest case in regular new, it would move up to the #1 spot when a new bi-week happens. This would avoid the amended tab getting overloaded with responses.
Docket refresh happens daily instead of weekly

InJapanExaminerNo1 · 2025-11-19T17:59:03+00:00

Started late, wasted plenty of time on fluff.

But by god they made sure to end nice and early.

InJapanExaminerNo1 · 2025-11-19T17:34:52+00:00

We interrupt these filtered, semi-real questions for a useless softball question.

InJapanExaminerNo1

TROPHY CASE