POPA has received a lot of questions and comments on TRP, especially the portfolio preparation.
The portfolio preparation tool is still down as far as POPA knows. Management is working on getting it back up.
Some hints/advice we have received specifically for portfolio preparation:
- Find the best way for you to look at your CPC symbols
- Some employees have found putting the symbols in alpha/numeric order works best
- Other employees have found printing out schemes and using them going through the list is helpful
- No one has found it helpful or fast to click on each symbol
- You don't want to make all of your symbols C* but you also don't want to go too narrow. Your portfolio includes all CPC symbols on every case you have examined since October 2013 and is not limited to claimed subject matter. You want to limit the CPC symbols in your portfolio to areas that you examine currently
- Talk to others in your art area
- These examiners may not be in your AU or even TC
- SCEs might be able to help you connect with different parts of the office, if needed
- After portfolio preparation:
- When TRP starts on 10/1/2020, examiners will need to be diligent about the CPC symbols on their applications. Correct CPC classification will be very important, and will have examination time and routing implications
- Make sure to use the C* challange process to change CPC symbols and USPC classification as needed
POPA has not seen all of the IT involved in the rollout of TRP on 10/1/2020.
POPA will be getting a briefing on the 120 hour pilot this week. POPA does not agree that the 120 hour dockets are workable and we feel they will harm a lot of examiners.
We have passed on many of your comments to Andy Faile, but we need examiners to send comments directly to Andy Faile and Drew Hirshfeld. Drew has stated many times internally and externally that everyone he talks to loves the new TRP and he has only heard good things about it. He has said the same thing about Search (the new search tool).