How a No-Show Patent Examiner Got Paid $25,000 While Golfing

For at least 730 hours he logged as work time in fiscal 2014, a patent examiner participating in his agency’s telework program was actually hitting golf balls, playing pool or socializing in restaurants.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office might never have detected his timecard abuse had it not been reported by an anonymous whistleblower, according to report on an investigation by the Commerce Department inspector general. That’s partly because the examiner’s supervisor worked from home most of the time.

The unnamed employee, who drew a salary of more than $70,000 a year as a GS-11, has since resigned. But the case is another black mark on one of the government’s most innovative telework programs, and the inspector general has recommended that the agency seek to claw back from “Examiner A” $25,000 he was paid for hours he did not work last year.

“The number of Examiner A’s unsupported hours in FY 2014 amounted to approximately 43 percent of the total hours he certified for the fiscal year. Considering that Examiner A was given the benefit of the doubt, our analysis likely gave him credit for many hours that he did not work,” the IG said.

Investigators’ review of internal email and instant messages showed several instances of abuse. In one example cited by the IG, the employee appeared to leave work after spending less than three hours at the Patent Office campus in Alexandria, Va.:

Examiner A [12:57 PM]: ok, did u wanna [hit golf balls at Golf Bar] today at all?

Examiner Y [12:58 PM]: actually yeah, let's just go there now?

Examiner A [12:58 PM]: yeah i'm down,

Examiner Y [12:58 PM]: aright cool, like now now? my car's in front of [a building on the USPTO campus]

Examiner A [12:59 PM]: i'll walk over lemme just hit the restroom

Examiner Y [12:59 PM]: aright, see ya out there

The employee claimed a full-day’s work in that example, although the IG found no evidence that he later returned to work or performed any work-related activity.

The whistleblower, in an unsigned letter to two supervisors, stated that the employee “seems to get away with anything,” coming into the office only at the end of a quarter to deliver a work product that was “garbage.” The supervisors reported the accusations to their manager, who shared the information with the USPTO’s Employee Relations Division. That body analyzed data related to Examiner A’s time and attendance reports, and forwarded the complaint to the inspector general.

As the investigation was unfolding, the report said, one supervisor said, “It’s hard to tell whether someone has got a time [and attendance] issue” because many examiners have flexible schedules that allow them to work during non-business hours. That supervisor was himself teleworking 30 hours a week.

“It appears that the USPTO’s internal control system used to monitor and prevent time and attendance abuse is insufficient,” the IG concluded. The three tools identified during our investigation that are used to monitor and detect time and attendance abuse were not successful identifying Examiner A as a time and attendance abuser, despite the fact that he did not work for at least 43 percent of his claimed hours” in fiscal 2014. The IG’s analysis “suggests that the USPTO’s current monitoring system will likely fail to detect future time and attendance abusers.”

The auditors’ recommendations included recovering the salary dollars paid the employee, restoring some erased time-and-attendance backup electronic records, and considering “reassessing the current controls to monitor the time and attendance of its employees, providing supervisors with patent examiner schedules, and requiring the presence indicator to reflect actual work presence.”

The Patent Office, in a statement on Wednesday said, “Although the vast majority of the USPTO’s almost 13,000 hard-working and highly skilled professionals perform their jobs with integrity and dedication, the agency nonetheless takes very seriously even one incidence of time and attendance abuse, such as by this particular employee, who is no longer with the agency. As such, the USPTO is very carefully considering all of the OIG’s findings and recommendations, including that the agency consider any legal remedies available to it for monetary restitution from this former employee.”

It added that over the past year, the agency has put in place a successful pilot program throughout the examiner corps to prevent work production abuses by early management intervention, added mandatory training on time-and-attendance policies, and “improved agency-wide management handling of conduct issues in employee performance appraisal plans.”

(Image via Mikael Damkier/Shutterstock.com)