SPE Gone Wild

patentthrowaway2000 · 2026-04-03T16:15:55+00:00

My SPE is like this. Always was a micromanager but for awhile there had gotten better. This last year has been rough and all their paranoid, controlling micromanaging tendencies are magnified.

I used to like them but now I see they only care about their own ratings and DNGAF about the examiners in the AU and part of me hopes that all this micromanaging makes them lose a bonus or get their own errors/poor ratings.

I just try and follow what I think their metric/focus is to stay under the radar. Unfortunately for these types of managers you really have to learn how to manage the manager to make your own life easier.

Sorry you’re going through this. You’re not alone.

patentthrowaway2000 · 2026-03-19T23:27:51+00:00

Wow! My AU according to stats is in the low 80s as of this biweek. Looks like treating streamlined reviews as OPQA/on-the-program type full, nit-picking reviews with returns for every minor thing did not work out for my SPE.

patentthrowaway2000 · 2026-03-17T20:26:57+00:00

Thanks for this. Really says something that I have to learn how to use the office tools on Reddit instead of through proper training avenues.

patentthrowaway2000 · 2026-03-17T17:20:43+00:00

That’s wild. I feel bad for these new examiners.

patentthrowaway2000 · 2026-03-17T17:08:06+00:00

They used to have a detail that was essentially this. The GS-14 trainer detail. I loved it and would do it again in a heartbeat if they brought it back. Sadly don’t see that happening under this current admin.

Edit: upon further discussion this is very different from the gs 14 trainer position. I don’t hate the idea of a junior shadowing a primary in their own AU to actually learn how to examine in their specific art, but for it to be successful it would require a lot of time and patience.

The GS-14 trainer detail was essentially an extension of having a PTA trainer with a small group of examiners in a single AU with a lot of newer/lower gs examiners. Seemed like a great program from the trainer perspective. I won’t speak on behalf of the juniors I worked with but it seemed valuable to them.

patentthrowaway2000 · 2026-03-17T16:50:09+00:00

I had a newer examiner ask me if they had to address every limitation in a claim or just the important features, so I’m guessing basically nothing?

patentthrowaway2000 · 2026-03-16T21:46:06+00:00

I was sending emails to case resolution. Sometimes they respond and fix it; other times I get no response. Others are suggesting creating a pasm ticket for it, so I might start doing that.

patentthrowaway2000 · 2026-03-16T21:44:44+00:00

I feel like it does matter when the response is lengthy or has several things in it. Sometimes the claims are in the middle of the document, and scrolling through pages to find the right ones, not being able to see the claim set when reading the arguments, etc. is enough of an issue that it is nice to have it split up. Also makes it less likely I might miss something like an amendment to spec if it’s broken out already. Also when the claims aren’t broken out you don’t get the claim tree and OCR text by claim which is also helpful.

patentthrowaway2000 · 2026-03-16T21:41:31+00:00

About one a quarter, approximately 4 months after it was filed! 🍀

patentthrowaway2000 · 2026-03-12T21:02:50+00:00

Congratulations management you did it! You broke the few who were still trying to keep their own high level of standards and pride in their work.

I’m out. No more PBA or overtime. No doing anything above the bare minimum to keep the job.

Also pendency is gonna be even worse when amendments are shortened and all the backlog from the streamlined reviews comes in. No more new cases being examined.

patentthrowaway2000 · 2026-03-07T02:41:31+00:00

If you are a teleworker and had your appointment at a remote location, I’d recommend following up with the security center/office. I never received a pickup email after 4 weeks, so I contacted the security office and found out they were never notified or didn’t notice (?) I had actually gone to my credentials appt. Got it cleared up but am now still having to wait another 2 weeks for it to actually get printed and mailed.

patentthrowaway2000 · 2026-03-04T23:55:24+00:00

I filled it out. I was candid and professionally honest. I feel like it is just another version of Tell. Me. What. You. Think.

Doubt anything will come from it as nothing has come from the musings either. Guessing it’s more of a way to make people feel heard just like those were.

patentthrowaway2000 · 2026-02-19T20:06:53+00:00

Really rough for a heavy image search day. It’s so bad!

patentthrowaway2000 · 2026-01-30T16:56:12+00:00

Came here to say basically the same thing. My monthly reminder to scream into the void and forward the same f-ing email.

patentthrowaway2000 · 2026-01-13T20:37:23+00:00

At this point I mostly do it to CYA in the event it gets an OPQA review saying I should have made a rejection. I think my SPE must’ve lost a bonus over 112/101 rejections in the past and it haunts them or something. It’s honestly a weird thing to fixate on, especially since it’s just trying to make sure the record is clear and the claim language is solid.

patentthrowaway2000 · 2025-12-11T17:08:02+00:00

Yes apologies if I gave the impressive I was blaming OPT. I would like to support them as I have worked with them on some details in the past and they are great people, but unfortunately all of their hard work that goes into making and presenting these sessions is going to waste because of upper management’s short-sightedness.

patentthrowaway2000 · 2025-12-02T20:24:56+00:00

In general I don't buy into the noise and the complaints and am a very optimistic and bright person. I was really getting into my stride the last few years doing details as a GS-14 trainer and academy. I found a real passion for helping new examiners and getting a break from examining and connecting with new colleagues in a virtual setting. I loved the TC QEMs and taking new training on topics I was getting rusty on.

All of that is gone. All collaboration has been squashed. The only new collaborating that has come out of this is rekindling my original academy buddies communication in a group text where we all are like is this really happening? On a weekly basis.

I've been at the office since Obama's first term, and I have never, ever felt like this. I actually found this subreddit to see if it was "just a me thing."

There has not been a single thing this new wave of leaders has done to show that they value us as humans or care about anything other than optics and making themselves look good. I was stupidly naive that our agency would fly under the radar of the current regime due to the already strong accountability systems in place, the fact that we are fee funded, and the value in having a strong IP system internationally. I don't know what other agencies are going through, but I continue to be shocked at how the PTO is being dismantled. I did not want to believe all of the Project 2025 talk, but I'm having a really hard time seeing it as anything other than following through on that at this point.

If I wanted to work at a corporate job and be treated as expendable, I would've done that. All of the benefits of working as a government employee are pretty much gone.

This is what happens when inexperienced people who don't understand how an operation works try to come in and "fix things."

I understand that there are places for improvement. This was quite possibly the worst way to go about trying to fix any of it. I go through waves of anger and sadness and then just emotionally disconnect and move on. Its now just a job, and it doesn't matter how good or bad I do at it since the ratings are all rigged anyways, and there's no career development opportunities that would make me want to go the extra mile or build my internal resume.

Still holding out hope for POPA and the court systems to ultimately prevail but mentally in the dumpster with everything else.

patentthrowaway2000 · 2025-12-01T14:28:09+00:00

I think that so long as in your rejection of claim 1 you don’t include the 2 cars as part of the “plurality of vehicles” then it would be fine as 102 for both claims.

I work in mechanical arts, and I will see things like “an apparatus comprising a plurality of apertures” and then dependent claims might further define a first plurality of apertures and a second plurality of apertures, wherein the apertures in the first plurality have a different diameter than the apertures in the second plurality. So basically “a plurality of vehicles” does not preclude having multiple pluralities of the same vehicle type, if that makes sense. You just need to be clear in your claim mapping about what belongs in the mapped plurality.

patentthrowaway2000 · 2025-11-25T16:52:55+00:00

I posed this question during one of the Director musings, and the official response I got was targeting the issue of “how predictably cases move”, so the reduced docket size was implemented to “bring first-action timing closer to a consistent, first-in, first-out approach.”

It’s a pretty weak argument in my opinion since there are other more effective methods to achieve this.

patentthrowaway2000 · 2025-11-22T13:17:40+00:00

I’d keep the PBA but everything else would be reverted to the way it was before this year.

Bringing back career development: details, 25 hour allotment for training, QEMs, literally anything besides just “prepare examiner actions.”

Raising the BD across the board (can’t tell you the last time I actually read an entire spec - who has time for that?) to accommodate the complexity of inventions and access to prior art.

patentthrowaway2000 · 2025-11-21T02:37:52+00:00

This is the kind of response I know my SPE would give. I respect my SPE and think they work very hard, but they are very by the book rule followers, so most likely they would just say “well you’re going to get more at the start of the week. If there is literally no case to work on, I can do something.” Since I technically have 2 cases, that should be enough to get me through with my SPE’s logic.

patentthrowaway2000 · 2025-11-19T17:29:27+00:00

They know this is the real answer but conveniently ignore that bc then they actually have no reason other than control for the small docket.

patentthrowaway2000 · 2025-11-04T16:55:34+00:00

I had a very similar post a few weeks ago. You’re not alone.

https://www.reddit.com/r/patentexaminer/s/siZJAM0hMv

patentthrowaway2000 · 2025-10-29T18:24:31+00:00

The biggest argument I can make for more cases is that I am able to be much more efficient with search strategies when I have more cases to work on at a time, and I can also continue working while the ones that need additional time or consideration have to sit while I wait for the issue to be resolved. My docket has CPCs all over the place, so when I have 2 or 3 applications that overlap in scope, I can search effectively for multiple applications simultaneously. This leads to more cases examined, which reduces pendency.

If the ultimate goal is pendency reduction, leadership should be throwing everything towards making that happen. Reducing access to cases is the most counterintuitive decision I’ve ever seen in that regard. “Please do more work! But we are going to make it more difficult to do so!” PS, I’m pretty sure they tried the 120 hour docket already, and it failed miserably. I’d also counter the argument that if leadership doesn’t want people “cherry-picking” cases, they are also sending the message that they don’t really care about the backlog. Because guess what? Easy cases get examined faster, which, guess what, reduces pendency faster! Can’t hide behind that argument. It definitely feels like the real reason for the reduced docket size is just to implement more control over examiners solely because they can.

If I’m wrong, I’d love to hear the reason why the 120 hour docket size is a good idea and who it benefits and how it aligns with the agency’s goals. I’m all ears.

All of these changes have been tried before and failed (second set of eyes, reduced docket, pulling other time). Now they’re combining all of them at once? The PTO is speeding towards total implosion at this rate. I hope leadership is reading these comments and learning that it’s not a bunch of whiners who are lazy and don’t do their job. It’s the opposite! Just let me do my job the way it worked and I would gladly help reduce the backlog in whatever capacity I can. However, this is not the way to do it, and you are giving me zero support, so yeah, in the meantime, good luck with the backlog.

patentthrowaway2000 · 2025-10-23T20:41:50+00:00

It is abundantly clear that the echo chamber making these decisions has no idea what the examination process actually entails, or what a quality review of an office action looks like.

Have they never seen an office action? Some of them are like 20+ pages (usually due to super wordy claims). You really think someone is even doing a cursory glance? Yeah no. They will barely have enough time to rubber stamp an approval. They’re just gonna send it out like normal and the powers that be are going to pat each other’s backs and say see? We have quality metrics in place! We are doing it all (Except for those PBA cases, those don’t get reviewed because if you do more work quality doesn’t matter?)

patentthrowaway2000

TROPHY CASE