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Topic: Working for the USPTO (Read 452781 times) |
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2Btabby
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Posts: 21
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Re: Working for the USPTO
« Reply #1040 on: Jun 21st, 2007, 7:30pm » |
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on Jun 21st, 2007, 7:19pm, gh wrote:
I guess there are varying degrees of competence.
My point is that you don’t really have to be a strong technical person to work at the PTO. In fact, in some cases I think that understanding the technical stuff well might slow down your productivity.
As to class rank and education level… one question:
If you had to choose to fly in one of two planes and you knew that one had been designed by a professor of aerospace engineering from MIT and the other was a 2.0 GPA student who took 5 yrs to graduate with a bachelor’s from Ball State… which would you choose?
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It depends on the fares... ha. But I understand your point.
I personally didn't do too great in engineering. I think that doing medicore in a subject, but still graduating is a testimate to you understanding the basics of the material without becoming committed or very interested in it. This was my case anyway. If I would have enjoyed homework, instead of skipping most of it and getting by in the tests, I'm sure I would have done better.
I gather that most people in the USPTO are there for a reason: they didn't especially like engineering or don't want an engineering career. I think that finding more people in the lower ends of their class rather than the top is to be expected. I was just going for the piece of paper and had a great time in college.
I'm committed to law however and want a 2nd chance at law school in the future. I also plan on doing good work in the present to the best of my abilities in a law-related career at the USPTO.
My main point is that I don't think you can fairly expect top engineers in a non-engineering field.
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applied
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Re: Working for the USPTO
« Reply #1041 on: Jun 21st, 2007, 8:09pm » |
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2Btabby,
I'm surprised that the USPTO will allow a person to start working, meaning having access to sensitive documents, before his/her background investigation has completed (or even started). My understanding is that the BI would not start until the SF-85 is filled and submitted.
What if the security clearance somehow gets denied ? Does the "employed" subject have to leave the job and, if he relocated from say 3000 miles away, have to move back without a job?
Did I misunderstand your post ?
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mk1023
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Posts: 52
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Re: Working for the USPTO
« Reply #1042 on: Jun 21st, 2007, 8:41pm » |
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Your SF-85 won't get processed until after you start working. The first day of work they return it to you with little post it notes on where to make corrections. You're also going to have to add your current address (which you won't know in advance if you're moving here) and also add your new supervisor's name (which you obviously won't know before you start). Everything doesn't need to be fixed until a couple weeks after you start.
Bottom line is that it isn't going to be a problem for you unless you have something to hide.
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| « Last Edit: Jun 21st, 2007, 8:44pm by mk1023 » |
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gh
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Re: Working for the USPTO
« Reply #1043 on: Jun 21st, 2007, 8:42pm » |
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Tabby,
I agree with you about everything, except that I don’t like what the last bit implies. I think that the PTO would benefit (and so would the US IP system) from making sure the technical aspects of the job were done more rigorously. In my opinion, patent examining really is should be done by people who are good enough at their art to be inventors themselves.
I have met more than a few examiners who were either inventors or researchers. These people chose to work at the PTO not because they weren’t good at what they did, but because it was more stable, higher paying or both. So, do they make the best examiners? I would argue that they do, in the sense that their decisions on patentability have the full weight of their expertise behind them. In other words, they really understand their respective fields well enough to see novelty when it really comes across their desks.
I don’t think the office is really worried about that, however. I think its management is far more concerned with pushing paper for the sake of pushing paper.
Just one ex-examiner’s opinion…
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gh
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Re: Working for the USPTO
« Reply #1044 on: Jun 21st, 2007, 8:51pm » |
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[quote author=applied
What if the security clearance somehow gets denied ? Does the "employed" subject have to leave the job and, if he relocated from say 3000 miles away, have to move back without a job?
[/quote]
I've never heard of anybody getting denied. It's not really that kind of security check. They basically call up your friends and verify that you're not an axe-murderer or something. It's not a high level clearance... it's not like you're designing cruise missiles or something.
If I remember correctly, you don't start working on pending patent applications until well after this form has been processed.
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