Trademark office to expand telework program for attorneys

The Patent and Trademark Office plans to expand its telecommuting program for trademark examining attorneys, estimating the move will save the agency about $1 million annually.

"We want to move the entire work-at-home workforce to the hoteling concept so that we can really reduce the amount of office space we need to have," said Deborah Cohn, group director of the Trademark law offices. The term "hoteling" refers to the reservations employees must make to use office space.

The agency's telework program, known as "Work-at-Home," began in 1997 with 18 trademark examining attorneys and has since expanded to include 110 of the agency's 253 trademark examining attorneys, gaining recognition for its success. Under the program, participants are able to work at home three days a week. Trademark officials plan to expand "Work-at-Home" during fiscal 2003 to allow program participants to spend as little as two hours in the office each week.

Under the new "Hoteling Program," several attorneys will share an office and coordinate with each other for use of the space. The agency tested the concept with 50 of its trademark attorneys during the past year and decided to offer the program to all its teleworking employees, after the success of the pilot project, Cohn said.

"Employees really want it, the whole Washington area really needs it, and the organization can benefit by reducing our base costs," Cohn said, adding that expanding the telework program will allow the agency to give up at least two floors of office space and save the agency about $900,000 a year.

Employees allowed to telecommute are chosen by seniority, and the agency sets up a workstation in each employee's home.

"We feel that is important in our environment-we deal with so many important live databases-to maintain control of the system," Cohn said.

The expansion of the telework plan fits well with the agency's push to replace its paper files with an electronic system, a key component of PTO's Strategic 21st Century Plan, according to agency spokeswoman Brigid Quinn.

"In our Trademark division, by the end of fiscal 2003 we plan to be completely electronic; we're at a little over 50 percent right now," Quinn said. "On the Patent side, we hope to be fully electronic by the end of fiscal 2004."

Patent Office employees continue to negotiate with agency officials for restoration of their Work-at-Home program, which expired on June 1. On Monday, leaders of the Patent Office Professional Association, which represents about 3,600 Patent employees, asked the Federal Service Impasses Panel to intervene.