RIFs
POPA has no information on RIFs at the agency. The rumor seems to be going around that POPA has seen the RIF plan. POPA has NOT seen the RIF plan for the agency or any POPA employees.
POPA-covered Employees in non-Patents areas
We have had POPA-covered employees in different business units of the office outside of Patents contact POPA saying they are being told by management that they will be taken off of telework “very soon”. At this time, POPA has only been noticed that the probationary patent examiners who live within 50 miles of Alexandria are being called into the office.
Return to Office Notice for Probationary Patent Examiners
These probationary patent examiners need to report to the Alexandria office on May 27, 2025, and will have no ability to telework. They must work in the Alexandria office for one year (until May 27, 2026) even if their probationary or trial period ends earlier. POPA is aware of only two exceptions: for military spouses where the military member is being assigned to a station more than 50 miles from the Alexandria office and those with a reasonable accommodation (RA) allowing them to telework.
On Thursday, April 24, 2025, POPA filed a grievance against management for violating our telework agreements.
Probationary employees fired by the USPTO
On February 27, 2025, probationary employees (not including patent examiners, SPEs and the equivalents in trademarks) were fired. They were brought back due to court action. On April 10, 2025, they were separated from the federal government retroactively to February 27, 2025, causing many issues including healthcare coverage. Court cases still continue for these employees.
Grievances and ULPs
- POPA has filed an unfair labor practice (ULP) against the agency for not permitting POPA (or any union) to speak at the Patents town hall on March 27, 2025. The Patents town hall was a formal meeting with employees and the union by labor law is permitted to speak. This right was denied.
- A grievance was filed on March 20, 2025, regarding the March 7, 2025, suspension of training for Patents employees.
- The grievance filed on April 24, 2025, regarding the return to work at Alexandria office of probationary patent examiners within 50 miles of the Alexandria office mentioned above.
These documents will be posted on our website.
SOHO routers
POPA employees have started receiving labels and/or boxes to return their unneeded SOHO routers. No directions were provided but some employees have been able to drop off the labeled box at a UPS or FedEx store. The latest information sent out suggested calling the Service Desk if you have any problems.
Pendency Balance Award (Patents)
Patents management sent to all Patents employees an announcement for a pilot pendency balance award (PBA) program. POPA does not have an agreement with management on the PBA. POPA had been in talks with management on this award program but suddenly on Wednesday (4/23/2025) management told POPA they would be implementing on Thursday, 4/24/2025. Management was aware that the POPA executive committee was going to discuss the award and possibly vote on it on 4/24/2025.
What management sent out (including the microsite) does not appear to address everything that was in the draft Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that was going to cover this award.
POPA supports awards that more properly compensate employees (instead of the small percentage that other awards such as gainsharing return). However, we were not able to fully address all of our concerns with this pilot.
Issues, some of which were addressed in the draft MOU and not necessarily addressed in management’s microsite, include:
- Employees being compensated differently – examiners will get paid for the first action only (not necessarily FAOM) and then it will go on their docket as a regular amendment, etc. “Others” (currently SPEs and MQASs) will be paid the full application hours for any PBA case, not just the first action hours. Management justifies this by saying they don’t have examining or docket management in their PAP.
- First actions mailed under the award pilot are not evaluated under PAP quality standards. Subsequent actions will be (even if the technology is new to you).
- If an error is made in a FAOM in an award case and repeated in a final rejection, the employee can be charged an error in the final rejection, even if the error wasn’t brought to their attention after the FAOM.
- Employees who have not examined applications for years will be eligible to work on these applications.
- TQAS and RQAS are not currently eligible for this program but SPEs and MQAS are.
- SPEs are now supposed to be training junior examiners as primary examiners are no longer permitted other time for training juniors. When will they have time to also do these applications?
- Time spent examining these cases will not be recorded as additional examining hours, unlike overtime. Do you have enough time to do your work now? How is POPA going to be able to ask for additional examination time if employees appear to have enough time to do these additional cases on their regular duty hours?
- Will examining and docket management become part of the PAPs for TQAS and RQAS if they are included in this award?
- Patents management noticed POPA in February that they will be giving us new Docket Management (DM) Award proposals. POPA has not received the proposals as of yet but Acting Commissioner for Patents Valencia Martin Wallace has already said we will not like them. We don’t know how burdensome management’s proposed DM award changes will be or how they might overlap with the Pendency Balance Award.
- Without an agreement, POPA employees won’t know the actual metes and bounds of this award or their responsibilities.
Questions on the PBA should be directed to Patents management.