Dear Patents employees,
We understand that the recent CrowdStrike outage has been frustrating for everyone and acknowledge the efforts made to keep colleagues informed and the patience employees had through frustrations with obtaining appointments and long wait times.
In addition to the office-wide guidance provided in the email below, the time FAQs, and the CrowdStrike IT outage site, the following supplemental guidance is provided for Patents employees.
Guidance for all Patents employees:
All impacted employees, production and non-production, should work with their supervisors on proper time recordation including computer system outage time. Reasonable requests will be granted in accordance with the guidance provided in the email below and the CrowdStrike IT outage site and should be charged to the time code Computer System Outage ANTIME-0000-A00131. Due to the global nature of this issue, a ticket number is not required to claim computer system outage time.
As a reminder, POPA bargaining unit employees must submit requests for non-production time due to IT issues for approval to supervisors using the Patents Non-Production Time Request Form for IT Issues.
Any impacts of the outage on performance or awards will be considered on a case-by-case basis in light of the particular circumstances.
For non-patent examiners that have a performance element that measures timeliness of actions taken, further guidance will be provided.
Further guidance for patent examiners:
Due to the extensive nature and duration of this outage, we will address Docket Management with the following automatic adjustments. No examiner action is needed.
- All clocks will have a value as if paused from Friday, July 19, 2024, through Sunday, July 28, 2024.
- OC sets posted on July 19 through July 28 will be credited on the date posted and scored as if posted on July 18.
- If a ceiling exceeded penalty score was assessed during the pause period, the penalty will be removed.
- All adjustments will be completed by COB August 2. If you have concerns regarding an adjustment, please contact your TSB Troubleshooter or DM POC.
- Examiners still offline on Monday, July 29, due to the CrowdStrike IT issue, should contact their SPE to have the TSB troubleshooter enter a 7+ day pause beginning July 19, 2024 until the examiner returns to work.
Employees should contact their SPE and DM POC for specific individual circumstances not covered by the adjustments above. These circumstances will be reviewed in consultation with the TC Director to determine the impacts and whether any additional adjustments will be made.
As a reminder, each examiner’s Docket Management Planner page includes a link to their DM POC e-mail address.