New computer system frustrates patent examiners

Patent and Trademark Office managers are offering employees compensatory time off for coming in to work outside normal office hours, in an effort to alleviate strain on a new, painfully slow computer system.

Since Oct. 9, examiners have been struggling to meet rigorous quotas for processing patent applications while relying on a new computer system that takes as long as 45 minutes to perform a search that used to take four seconds, according to Ronald Stern, president of the Patent Office Professionals Association.

Beginning this week, patent examiners are being offered the chance to come in to work as early as 5:30 a.m. in return for comp time. Patent office managers hope the new policy will encourage employees to spread out their use of the new system.

"Employees are frustrated out of their minds," Stern said. In a recent meeting with management, "one normally very mild-mannered examiner couldn't keep himself from using four-letter words. It really was evidence of the frustration people are feeling."

On Oct. 9, PTO shut down its old Messenger search system, forcing examiners to begin using the Examiner Automated Search Tool (EAST) and the Web-based Examiner Search Tool (WEST). The search tools help examiners determine the viability of patent applications.

The Messenger system was not Y2K-compliant, so it had to be taken offline, said PTO Commissioner Q. Todd Dickinson.

"Faced with Y2K, we had a choice to make and it was a difficult choice, but we had to go forward with the implementation" of EAST and WEST, Dickinson said.

Examiners immediately began complaining about the speed of the new systems, the difficult-to-use interfaces and the lack of training PTO had provided to EAST and WEST users. The search system is just one part of the process for evaluating a patent application, but the tough quotas examiners work under make any decrease in productivity especially frustrating.

Angry employees fired off complaints to Dickinson and to the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, calling for an investigation of the problem.

Stern said Dickinson has been responsive to examiners' complaints.

"I worked very aggressively with the head of IT and the head of the patent corps who's responsible for IT to make sure that we addressed these concerns," Dickinson said. "There are times you have to lay down the law and say you want it fixed. I'm very sensitive to the morale aspect of what changing a system like this-which is a basic work tool-means. I want to make sure our examiners get the tools they need and they get the training they need to use them."

Training on the new systems has now been provided to all examiners. And in addition to offering comp time in an effort to spread out the load on the new systems, PTO has acquired a larger server to handle more simultaneous searches. Employees can seek quota reductions if computer delays take up too much of their time.

A software fix to improve the system is being delayed until the second week in January as a precaution against Y2K problems. While PTO officials are optimistic that the new system's problems will die down in January, examiners are not so sure.

"The people using the system think [managers] are deluding themselves," Stern said.