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from the explains-a-lot-of-recent-patents dept.
An internal investigation by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office found that some of its 8,300 patent examiners repeatedly lied about the hours they were putting in and many were receiving bonuses for work they did not do. While half of the USPTO's Patent Examiners work from home full time, oversight of the telework program and of examiners based at the Alexandria headquarters was "completely ineffective," investigators concluded.
The internal investigation also unearthed another widespread problem. More than 70 percent of the 80 managers interviewed also told investigators that a "significant" number of examiners did not work for long periods, then rushed to get their reviews done at the end of each quarter. Supervisors told the review team that the practice "negatively affects" the quality of the work. "Our quality standards are low," one supervisor told the investigators. "We are looking for work that meets minimal requirements."
Patent examiners review applications and grant patents on inventions that are new and unique. They are experts in their fields, often with master's and doctoral degrees. They earn at the top of federal pay scale, with the highest taking home $148,000 a year.
But when it came time last summer for the patent office to turn over the findings to its outside watchdog, the most damaging revelations had disappeared. The report sent to Commerce Department Inspector General Todd Zinser concluded that it was impossible to know if the whistleblowers' allegations of systemic abuses were true.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 12 2014, @04:27AM
> Because small government types obsess over reducing the size of the US Patent and Trademark Office?
Not in particular, but in case you haven't been paying attention they are quite happy with a blind, across-the-board cut of about 10%. [wikipedia.org] Next time, leave the strawmen in the barn, ok?
(Score: 2) by khallow on Tuesday August 12 2014, @02:58PM
So what? Everyone else went along with it because the alternative was worse. A blind cut might be far from optimal, but at least it was political feasible.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday August 12 2014, @03:41PM
> Everyone else went along with it because the alternative was worse.
Like, I don't know, actually talking to each other and agreeing on proper allocation of funds?
Politicians actually doing their jobs isn't a hard concept. Step 1 would be a rule that one chamber of congress has to take a vote on a bill voted by the other, unmodified. The current policy of "majority of the majority", and the ability of a single guy to just stop anything until he gets his bribe, are probably making the founders spin in their graves (see the SMBC on using that for power).
(Score: 3, Insightful) by khallow on Tuesday August 12 2014, @10:36PM
A "proper allocation" is that we cut your squeeze so I can keep my squeeze. Too many parties with too much self-interest are contaminating the decision-making process. And it's not just evil corporations. Even a bunch of Tea Party members are all about cutting everything else so that Social Security and Medicare can keep going as is. All someone has to do to thwart any sort of "proper allocation of funds" is to rile up the people whose funding gets cut by your "proper allocation".
Across the board cuts are IMHO the solution to this political Gordian knot. Everyone shares in the pain so there's far less resistance (no one gets particularly outraged by perceived unfairness of the allocation). The tactic reduces the budget deficit (notice that I don't consider raising taxes in itself a serious solution to this problem since in the absence of any attempt to contain spending, spending just increases to consume the additional revenue) and simultaneously weaken a bit the special interests who are a primary driver of this mess.
Only for someone who ignores reality. We wouldn't be in this situation in the first place, if politicians were doing the jobs we expected of them.
This was a known failure mode at the time which is why they choose several of the peculiar institutions and procedures of the time such as a Senate which was mostly not chosen by popular election and the electoral college. Yet at the same time, they deliberately created situations where a few could block the progress of a majority precisely because they considered to some degree that the above situation was better than alternatives where minorities could easily be ignored.