Here is work schedule for the next year: Ben's Work Schedule
Here are the Holidays that the USPTO recognizes: USPTO Holidays
Friday, July 27, 2012
Warp Speed Ahead
Time has just flown by here in the nation's capital. I can't believe it has been a week since my last post...but it was for good reason. My parents came to visit me for 5 days while my brothers were either on a mission trip in North Carolina or working. So I was either working at the USPTO, learning at my LSAT class (4 hr every Tuesday and Thursday night after work), or with my parents working on getting my room in order and settling me in.
Work has gotten though the orientation, getting to know people stage. Now it is more routine training about the laws, rules, and regulation that govern how patents are examined. There are about 2-3 hr per day of lectures with every new person (~130) over different parts of the patent office such as statutory law, resources available to use for examining, and the patent classification system. Then we have about 2-3 hr per day in our lab (~16 chemical and biology people) to do exercises and discussions. Then we have training on the different software that we will use for examining. The software is used to find previous patents, non-patent literature, and our docket (where we are able to see what cases have been assigned to us and where they are in work flow). This is all helping me feel more comfortable as I get closer to examining real patents for real people and real expectations for production.
It was really great having my parent! It completely changed how my room looks (Please see pictures at the bottom of the post). There work really made the process go quickly versus the weeks it would have taken me to get my room to where it is. I enjoyed them being here. They were able to meet my roommates, Jon and Ryan. We went to a cookout for Jon's birthday at his Dad's house in Alexandria. After they were satisfied with how things were at the townhouse, they took off back to corn country to leave the bright lights and their first born in DC.
Here are some pictures to give you a feel of what is going on.
Work has gotten though the orientation, getting to know people stage. Now it is more routine training about the laws, rules, and regulation that govern how patents are examined. There are about 2-3 hr per day of lectures with every new person (~130) over different parts of the patent office such as statutory law, resources available to use for examining, and the patent classification system. Then we have about 2-3 hr per day in our lab (~16 chemical and biology people) to do exercises and discussions. Then we have training on the different software that we will use for examining. The software is used to find previous patents, non-patent literature, and our docket (where we are able to see what cases have been assigned to us and where they are in work flow). This is all helping me feel more comfortable as I get closer to examining real patents for real people and real expectations for production.
It was really great having my parent! It completely changed how my room looks (Please see pictures at the bottom of the post). There work really made the process go quickly versus the weeks it would have taken me to get my room to where it is. I enjoyed them being here. They were able to meet my roommates, Jon and Ryan. We went to a cookout for Jon's birthday at his Dad's house in Alexandria. After they were satisfied with how things were at the townhouse, they took off back to corn country to leave the bright lights and their first born in DC.
Here are some pictures to give you a feel of what is going on.
My Room
The Rest of the Room
The Closet in My Room
The Bathroom
Our Lab Room in Patent Training Academy
Friday, July 20, 2012
First Week of Work Complete!
Sorry for waiting so long to post, I have had many things to keep track of do in this new place, not the least of which my job!
The highlight of Wednesday was that we had an opportunity to look at a patent and see if we could apply the proper laws to the patent and go through an interview with an attorney. However the patent wasn't, but a made up one. It was a patent for mouse trap. Our lab of 16 split up into groups of 4, each assigned with a specific question, which corresponded to a certain law. Some there was sometime to read the patent, which includes the abstract, description, figures, and claims. So to start we read the whole thing and talked in our group of 4. Since we were all green, we had next to no clue what to do. Fortunately there were a few people who have law degrees or have IP experience. I was a little unsure how to apply the law to this case, but the more I communicated with people and read the patent and statutes, the more confident I became. Then some of our people went into a mock interview with an actual attorney who turned out to be a SPE at the USPTO. She thought we did better than the other groups she had done this for in the past. The goal of this exercise was to show us how little we really knew about patent examining, while actively participating while learning.
Thursday was a big day. Our group had to do a funny representation of our previous days experience. All of them were funny and creative. Some examples were Law & Order, The Dating Game, and a full length Beatles's song for patent examining. Most of the time was spent in a lecture room listening to people about overtime, benefits, and harassment with time sprinkled in for out trainers to talk to the lab sections. There was a small USPTO tour, but we did not get very far. However we did go to the Patent Museum. At one point during the day, I thought I lost my wallet with all of my cards and money. Luckily it just fell out of my pocket while I was sitting and nobody touched it. After work I went to Arlington, for my LSAT Prep Class. It was at the Holiday Inn near the Rosslyn Metro stop. There our class of 9 met our instructor Tony N who gave us a bio about himself and some info about the LSAT. Then we took an LSAT diagnostic to get a baseline of where people are at. It went until 10 PM. Then I did not get home until 11 PM and went straight to bed.
To start off Friday, we wrote down what the new examiner's goals were for the academy (the 4 month training period started this week). It immediately reminded of the one minute goal setting in Kenneth Blanchard's One Minute Manager. If you haven't read it, I recommend you do. It is an easy read and give you a technique to help entities be more productive, but I digress...Then there were some lectures going more in depth about the patent system especially the claims, which is possibly the most important part. Then there was a presentation about the different type of applications accepted at the patent office. These include utility, design, and plant applications. To end the week, we had a presentation about search tools available to us to examine patents and how they connected.
After work I went with Jon to pick up a gas grill for our place. It was really cheap because the person was moving to Idaho. After going to the grocery store and getting the grill home, we had a roommate bonding cook out. There was brats, cheeseburgers, chips, beer, beans, and sauerkraut.
The highlight of Wednesday was that we had an opportunity to look at a patent and see if we could apply the proper laws to the patent and go through an interview with an attorney. However the patent wasn't, but a made up one. It was a patent for mouse trap. Our lab of 16 split up into groups of 4, each assigned with a specific question, which corresponded to a certain law. Some there was sometime to read the patent, which includes the abstract, description, figures, and claims. So to start we read the whole thing and talked in our group of 4. Since we were all green, we had next to no clue what to do. Fortunately there were a few people who have law degrees or have IP experience. I was a little unsure how to apply the law to this case, but the more I communicated with people and read the patent and statutes, the more confident I became. Then some of our people went into a mock interview with an actual attorney who turned out to be a SPE at the USPTO. She thought we did better than the other groups she had done this for in the past. The goal of this exercise was to show us how little we really knew about patent examining, while actively participating while learning.
Thursday was a big day. Our group had to do a funny representation of our previous days experience. All of them were funny and creative. Some examples were Law & Order, The Dating Game, and a full length Beatles's song for patent examining. Most of the time was spent in a lecture room listening to people about overtime, benefits, and harassment with time sprinkled in for out trainers to talk to the lab sections. There was a small USPTO tour, but we did not get very far. However we did go to the Patent Museum. At one point during the day, I thought I lost my wallet with all of my cards and money. Luckily it just fell out of my pocket while I was sitting and nobody touched it. After work I went to Arlington, for my LSAT Prep Class. It was at the Holiday Inn near the Rosslyn Metro stop. There our class of 9 met our instructor Tony N who gave us a bio about himself and some info about the LSAT. Then we took an LSAT diagnostic to get a baseline of where people are at. It went until 10 PM. Then I did not get home until 11 PM and went straight to bed.
To start off Friday, we wrote down what the new examiner's goals were for the academy (the 4 month training period started this week). It immediately reminded of the one minute goal setting in Kenneth Blanchard's One Minute Manager. If you haven't read it, I recommend you do. It is an easy read and give you a technique to help entities be more productive, but I digress...Then there were some lectures going more in depth about the patent system especially the claims, which is possibly the most important part. Then there was a presentation about the different type of applications accepted at the patent office. These include utility, design, and plant applications. To end the week, we had a presentation about search tools available to us to examine patents and how they connected.
After work I went with Jon to pick up a gas grill for our place. It was really cheap because the person was moving to Idaho. After going to the grocery store and getting the grill home, we had a roommate bonding cook out. There was brats, cheeseburgers, chips, beer, beans, and sauerkraut.
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
El Segundo Día
I survived the 2nd at my job! You should read to the bottom of all my blog posts because there may be links or pictures.
The Director of the PTO, David Kappos, who was referred and pictured in the last post was supposed to speak to all of the new patent examiners (PE). Unfortunately he was not able to make it. So to start the day we went over a little bit of the mandatory background check. I took care of everything before I got here except for the follow up interview.
Next I was able to meet my new Supervisory Patent Examiner (SPE) and Art Unit. A SPE is the supervisor for about 13-20 PE from junior to senior level who have different signatory privileges. When I start out I will advise other PE how to act on a patent claim. Art means subject matter such as chemical and material engineering or Mechanical Engineering, Manufacturing, Products. My Technology Center (TC) is 1700, which is chemical and material engineering. My sub class in 210 Liquid Purification or Separation under TC 1797and my home SPE is Vickie Kim.
I walked to Vickie's office on the 6th floor of the Remsen building (USPTO Alexandria Map) with all of her PE. All of the buildings are connected at the basement or concourse level, so we didn't have to go outside in this heat. On our walk and in her office, we talked on a range of topics including her path to this position (pharmacist), the benefits of this position such as job flexibility, hoteling, and law school options, and general information about the USPTO. There were cookies and store bought red velvet cakes. I was able to meet some of the PE in this group who are working from home including some one from St. Louis. Also the PEs at the office joined us i n Vickie's office. I got meet and talk to all of them. It seemed to be a pretty relaxed work environment based on the topics of conversion and the casual dress of most of the people.
After meeting them, I went back to my Academy training room for an ice breaker activity. Each person had to make a shield on a piece of paper with quadrants made up of place of origin, what I am famous for, accomplishments, and hidden talent. Under the shield had to be a motto or saying. These had to be made with a limited supply of markers to encourage people to talk to one another. My origin quadrant was easy: the state of Iowa, corn cob, and a tigerhawk. Then for the famous section, I mentioned I was an NFL owner of the Green Bay Packers. For the accomplishments I showed my international travel and for the hidden talent, I put my grilling skills. I drew so well that I was the first person nominated to be the lab artist for the lab's shield that was presented to all of the other lab groups.
After the ice breaking we got back to work with 2:30 of presentations about the Patent System and the Examiner Role & Flow of an Application. That is where we started to get the meat of what we will all be doing. This included some introduction laws and rules that can be used in an office action to deny a claim. There were also a long list of thing I can't do because what I will learn how to do and a short list of thing I can do.
Now I am home writing this blog. Tonight Jon and I are going to pick up some furniture in Clarendon, VA (Directions to Clarendon from my Townhouse) near Arlington. Then maybe a stop at the grocery store, getting my finances in order, review some information from the PTO. Who knows? Eventually this blog should have more of a balance between my job and stuff outside of it. Below is a link and a picture.
USPTO Organization Chart Hopefully I will be able to get one that shows where I am! From above this it goes Constitution - Executive Branch (President) - Cabinet (secretary of commerce) - Director of USPTO (David Kappos)
The Director of the PTO, David Kappos, who was referred and pictured in the last post was supposed to speak to all of the new patent examiners (PE). Unfortunately he was not able to make it. So to start the day we went over a little bit of the mandatory background check. I took care of everything before I got here except for the follow up interview.
Next I was able to meet my new Supervisory Patent Examiner (SPE) and Art Unit. A SPE is the supervisor for about 13-20 PE from junior to senior level who have different signatory privileges. When I start out I will advise other PE how to act on a patent claim. Art means subject matter such as chemical and material engineering or Mechanical Engineering, Manufacturing, Products. My Technology Center (TC) is 1700, which is chemical and material engineering. My sub class in 210 Liquid Purification or Separation under TC 1797and my home SPE is Vickie Kim.
I walked to Vickie's office on the 6th floor of the Remsen building (USPTO Alexandria Map) with all of her PE. All of the buildings are connected at the basement or concourse level, so we didn't have to go outside in this heat. On our walk and in her office, we talked on a range of topics including her path to this position (pharmacist), the benefits of this position such as job flexibility, hoteling, and law school options, and general information about the USPTO. There were cookies and store bought red velvet cakes. I was able to meet some of the PE in this group who are working from home including some one from St. Louis. Also the PEs at the office joined us i n Vickie's office. I got meet and talk to all of them. It seemed to be a pretty relaxed work environment based on the topics of conversion and the casual dress of most of the people.
After meeting them, I went back to my Academy training room for an ice breaker activity. Each person had to make a shield on a piece of paper with quadrants made up of place of origin, what I am famous for, accomplishments, and hidden talent. Under the shield had to be a motto or saying. These had to be made with a limited supply of markers to encourage people to talk to one another. My origin quadrant was easy: the state of Iowa, corn cob, and a tigerhawk. Then for the famous section, I mentioned I was an NFL owner of the Green Bay Packers. For the accomplishments I showed my international travel and for the hidden talent, I put my grilling skills. I drew so well that I was the first person nominated to be the lab artist for the lab's shield that was presented to all of the other lab groups.
After the ice breaking we got back to work with 2:30 of presentations about the Patent System and the Examiner Role & Flow of an Application. That is where we started to get the meat of what we will all be doing. This included some introduction laws and rules that can be used in an office action to deny a claim. There were also a long list of thing I can't do because what I will learn how to do and a short list of thing I can do.
Now I am home writing this blog. Tonight Jon and I are going to pick up some furniture in Clarendon, VA (Directions to Clarendon from my Townhouse) near Arlington. Then maybe a stop at the grocery store, getting my finances in order, review some information from the PTO. Who knows? Eventually this blog should have more of a balance between my job and stuff outside of it. Below is a link and a picture.
USPTO Organization Chart Hopefully I will be able to get one that shows where I am! From above this it goes Constitution - Executive Branch (President) - Cabinet (secretary of commerce) - Director of USPTO (David Kappos)
My Desk in our Lab 1 Training Room
Monday, July 16, 2012
First Day of a Real Job
Today was my first day of work! The excitement was so overwhelming that I was waking up every hour from 1 AM to 7 AM when I got up. Then I prepared for the day, which included showering, eating breakfast, reading the Bible and praying. By 8 AM I was out the door with white dress shirt and black pants, which were brought together by a maroon and black tie with a messenger bag hanging across my shoulder. It was warm and humid all day in Alexandria. I almost broke out in sweat walking to and from work.
After the 17 min walk, I arrived at the meeting room in the main building, the Madison Building, where the Director of the Patent Office, David Kappos, has his office. There were many people in this large room, probably around 130 with about 20 more in Detroit the new PTO satellite office who were watching the proceedings over a webcam. Many people looked older than myself by a wide margin. The dress code varied widely, but after looking at some of the people who thought could do well, I will stick with the dress clothes and tie. Also a majority were male. Sitting at my spot at a table of 20 was mountain of paper work including a binder that has important information and forms. Most of day was orientation in the large group. Many forms were turned in. We watched some videos and listened to presentations from many groups at the USPTO including ethics (2x), IT do's and don'ts, health insurance, life insurance, Thrift Saving Plan (like a 401(k)), safety, emergency action plan, and equal opportunity activities. There are special rules for federal employees like myself and even more for patent examiner who may have inside information about a company.
During the lunch break, I picked up a salad ($0.38 per ounce) and talk to a couple health insurance providers. One of them was an HMO and the other one was an integrated HMO. There were other options available and I picked up their literature, but those were the two people who were available when I moseyed on over to the group of tables. I have a large amount of literature about the different health care options. It will take me some time to go over them and make an educated decision based on my situation and what is available.
Then we broke up into our lab section, which for our technology group was 16 people. Our technology group included Biotechnology and organic chemistry (TC 1600) and Chemical and Material Engineering (TC 1700). A link to the different technology centers is here. We have two trainers (I didn't know I was a pokemon :-) ) who have worked for the USPTO for awhile. They rambled for about 45 minutes about themselves, stuff going on at the PTO, how the PTO works in more detail, and the plan for the next week and month. Over this 4 month, Phase I training we will mostly be in this room with cubicles set up for us all with dual monitors, laptop, pull out keyboard, and nice office phone.
After that I walked home in the heat and some DC traffic. It was bumper to bumper and nobody was moving and this was on the city streets not the highways or Beltway. Eventually I got home and put together my desk and side table after cleaning them. Now I just need to pick my bed stuff, another dresser, and coffee table for the living room and then I will be set on furniture.
As a side note, on Sunday Jon, Ryan, and I went to the National Zoo (free!) and met up with some of Jon's friends. It was not the best situation with going near when the zoo closed and it raining, but was fun to do something and bond.
After the 17 min walk, I arrived at the meeting room in the main building, the Madison Building, where the Director of the Patent Office, David Kappos, has his office. There were many people in this large room, probably around 130 with about 20 more in Detroit the new PTO satellite office who were watching the proceedings over a webcam. Many people looked older than myself by a wide margin. The dress code varied widely, but after looking at some of the people who thought could do well, I will stick with the dress clothes and tie. Also a majority were male. Sitting at my spot at a table of 20 was mountain of paper work including a binder that has important information and forms. Most of day was orientation in the large group. Many forms were turned in. We watched some videos and listened to presentations from many groups at the USPTO including ethics (2x), IT do's and don'ts, health insurance, life insurance, Thrift Saving Plan (like a 401(k)), safety, emergency action plan, and equal opportunity activities. There are special rules for federal employees like myself and even more for patent examiner who may have inside information about a company.
During the lunch break, I picked up a salad ($0.38 per ounce) and talk to a couple health insurance providers. One of them was an HMO and the other one was an integrated HMO. There were other options available and I picked up their literature, but those were the two people who were available when I moseyed on over to the group of tables. I have a large amount of literature about the different health care options. It will take me some time to go over them and make an educated decision based on my situation and what is available.
Then we broke up into our lab section, which for our technology group was 16 people. Our technology group included Biotechnology and organic chemistry (TC 1600) and Chemical and Material Engineering (TC 1700). A link to the different technology centers is here. We have two trainers (I didn't know I was a pokemon :-) ) who have worked for the USPTO for awhile. They rambled for about 45 minutes about themselves, stuff going on at the PTO, how the PTO works in more detail, and the plan for the next week and month. Over this 4 month, Phase I training we will mostly be in this room with cubicles set up for us all with dual monitors, laptop, pull out keyboard, and nice office phone.
After that I walked home in the heat and some DC traffic. It was bumper to bumper and nobody was moving and this was on the city streets not the highways or Beltway. Eventually I got home and put together my desk and side table after cleaning them. Now I just need to pick my bed stuff, another dresser, and coffee table for the living room and then I will be set on furniture.
As a side note, on Sunday Jon, Ryan, and I went to the National Zoo (free!) and met up with some of Jon's friends. It was not the best situation with going near when the zoo closed and it raining, but was fun to do something and bond.
David Kappos: Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office David Kappos Bio
Saturday, July 14, 2012
Getting Settled In
There is a lot of little things that I needed to take care to be settled in before I start work on Monday July 16th. One of them was to have my photo taken for my USPTO badge and get my fingerprints taken. I timed how long it would take me door to door between my place and the PTO. It took a little over 16 min in the warm, humid Alexandria weather. The walk is easy except for crossing one major street, but that can be avoided by talk a pedestrian tunnel underneath it. The USPTO has 5 new (2006) buildings right next to each other. All have the same design and are big.
USPTO Madison Building
After that I walked to a few thrift stores that I found on Google. However all of them were too expensive for me and limited selection. So I came home looked for furniture (bed frame, box spring, desk, chair, dresser) online and was able to get some leads. Jon, Ryan, and I will be going out Sunday afternoon to look at some of the furniture and hopefully bring some back! I don't like having all of my stuff unorganized and all of the floor in my room.
Then Friday night Jon and I tried to get me a SmarTrip card for the Metro.
SmarTrip Card In Use
The SmartTrip card is a permanent card that lets you load money on it either at the station or online via a credit card. You can put enough on it so you don't need to load it every time you take the Metro. They can be replaced for $5. Another nice thing about the card is that you can just touch the SmarTrip sensor on the gate instead of getting the card out of your wallet, inserting the card, grabbing the card, and putting it back into your wallet. So we went to a main station near Capitol Hill where Jon thought we could get one. When we asked a Metro worker where we could get a card she said that we have to go CVS. Before searching for a CVS we walked around the National Mall. I saw the White House, Capitol Building, and the Washington Monument. There were quite a few people there including slow pitch softball players. Jon tried to catch a foul ball, but he dropped it. I was surprised to see that the grass at the Mall is so bad (very patch, some weeds). Eventually we searched a CVS, but it was closed and so was the next one. So we went back home empty handed.
Today I got my SmarTrip card by going to a station that said it had a SmarTrip machine. So in Pentagon City I found the machine and got my SmarTrip card. It took me longer than I expected because there are repairs going on this week and I had to take a bus to the station. Then I looked at 2 grocery stores that were about a mile away on foot. The first stop was Trader Joe's,
Trader Joe's Logo
which looked like to me a New Pioneer Co-Op by my old apartment in Iowa City on steroids. I talked to a worker at the store and he told me a little about the place. Then I went Giant Foods,
Giant Logo
which is more of a traditional grocery store. However neither one had Jack's frozen pizza! After that I went to the closest library to my house and got a few books to read after I got my library card. Now I am home following up on my furniture search and not sure what I will do tonight.
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Safely Arrived
I am now in DC! (Safely)
At 9:55 AM I left the Quad City International Airport to Reagan National Airport via O'Hare. The flights went off without a hitch and went by quickly. Maybe it was because I read the entire fantasy football magazine that I brought along. Then I took a cab with my 2 check-in bags, backpack, laptop bag, and self-inflating air mattress to the townhouse.
When I arrived Jon and his father, the landlord were there to greet me. Jon gave me tour of the place. Jon lives in the basement with the washer and dryer and a bathroom. On the 1st floor is a small kitchen. Everything is small: dishwasher, oven, counter place. There is a small dining room with nothing in it connected to the family room, which has a couch, coffee table, and a tube TV. On the second floor is my and Ryan's room. Both rooms have hardwood floors. The room is decently sized (15'x15'). Ryan and I share a bathroom up there too.
Then Jon and I went to Old Town for dinner. We went to Austyn Grill (Mexican). Then we went down to Old Town's Waterfront
At 9:55 AM I left the Quad City International Airport to Reagan National Airport via O'Hare. The flights went off without a hitch and went by quickly. Maybe it was because I read the entire fantasy football magazine that I brought along. Then I took a cab with my 2 check-in bags, backpack, laptop bag, and self-inflating air mattress to the townhouse.
When I arrived Jon and his father, the landlord were there to greet me. Jon gave me tour of the place. Jon lives in the basement with the washer and dryer and a bathroom. On the 1st floor is a small kitchen. Everything is small: dishwasher, oven, counter place. There is a small dining room with nothing in it connected to the family room, which has a couch, coffee table, and a tube TV. On the second floor is my and Ryan's room. Both rooms have hardwood floors. The room is decently sized (15'x15'). Ryan and I share a bathroom up there too.
Then Jon and I went to Old Town for dinner. We went to Austyn Grill (Mexican). Then we went down to Old Town's Waterfront
Now we are just chilling with Ryan before we go grocery shopping.
Monday, July 9, 2012
Countdown To Launch
I will be moving ~850 miles from Davenport, IA to Alexandria, VA! (Which is in the Washington DC Metro Area Google Map of Alexandria)
I have been working hard everyday since I accepted the job as Patent Examiner at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to get everything in order to leave and get as much information as possible about everything (USPTO, Townhouse, Washington DC Area, Alexandria, etc).
My address is below:
My address is below:
40 East Rosemont Ave
Alexandria, VA 22301
You can see a Google Street View of the townhouse here. I will be rooming with 2 other guys who recently graduated college and are working just like me.
I will be flying to Reagan Airport on Thursday July 12th!
T-minus 3 days!
T-minus 3 days!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)