National's Game

Last week I mentioned that I would get my 1st FOAM done this week.  Unfortunately it was reviewed and I had to completely rewrite it.  The rewriting took longer than I thought and I had to do more patent searching.  So hopefully next week after I rewrite it again I will be able to submit it and move on to the next case.  Also the patent system has been in the news a lot recently please check out these stories:

Apple and Samsung Verdict
Possible Effect
Monsanto and DuPont

Last Sunday I went to a National's game with Thrivent Financial for Lutheran's Alexandria chapter.  I picked up the ticket from the Thrivent office, which is really close to the USPTO.  I decided to take the Metro instead of the bus to the park.  That gave me more freedom on when I could arrive or leave from the ballpark.  The leaving was part would be hectic.  We would have to wait for everybody to get back to the bus.  If someone was not present we would have to wait until they got there.

I wasn't really sure how to get to the park, but I knew what Metro stop it was.  However I have never made the transfers in the station that was required.  When I got into the King St. Metro (the metro stop close to my  place), I saw almost everyone wearing National's gear.  (I don't have any yet, but I wore red and white)  Then I thought this will be easy I will just follow the wave of red and white to the park because that is the only place that many people wearing National's gear would go.  While I was taking the Metro, it started pouring outside.  Before walking in the street to the park, I put on my emergency poncho.  My shorts still got soaked.

Eventually I got to the park and had some time to walk around the entire park, since there was definitely going to be a rain delay.  It is a new stadium.  I think Nationals Park was completed in 2008 or 2009.  It is nice.  It has plenty of space, everything looks good and in order, all of the seats are good seats,  there is a wide variety of food offerings, but of course extremely expensive because of the monopoly they have on food and drink in the stadium.

Eventually I got to my seat on the second level (Sec. 203).  It was one of the last sections down the left field line.  Luckily it was under a overhang and I did not get wet while waiting for the game to start.  Also during the rain delay, they showed the Braves on the big screen in centerfield.  While waiting for the game to start during a 2 hour 30 minute rain delay, I got to know the people around me in my seat very well because what else are you going to do for that long?

Finally at 4:00 PM, the game started against the Mets with Gio Gonzalez throwing for the best team in baseball (record-wise at the time).  It was an exciting game:  home runs (Harper and Espinosa), hits (16 at least between both teams), no stoppages (not many pitching changes during the inning), and Teddy didn't win again (almost 1000 straight).  Eventually I got home about 8 hours after I set out to leave for the game.  I was exhausted.  I am glad I went and when I go next time I will know exactly where to go and what to do.

Rain is not good for baseball

 The outfield part of the stadium before the game

Finally Baseball!

Bryce Harper Batting

Coming Home 11Oct12 - 15Oct12

I will coming home to Davenport for a few days in the middle of October.  I will be getting in on evening of Thursday October 11th and departing the morning of Monday October 15th.

Another Week Bites the Dust

This week at work our lab was trained for a day on how to use STN for patent examination.  It is a way to look up patents and non patent literature (NPL) for chemical substances.  For patent examiners like me in TC 1700 it is useful for the NPL and chemical information from the CAS registry.  The patent prior art can be more easily found using the USPTO's in house patent searching system.  There are free lunch and learn seminars from these people every month.  Free food means not making a lunch means I will probably being going! haha.  Also for a day our lab had a TC day.  Everyone went to there respective TC, chemistry or biology, to meet people at their home TC.  There were examiner, supervisory patent examiner (SPE), and TC director panels.  Each of them gave some background information about themselves and then gave more information about the job in general and with TC 1700 perspective.  I think they gave some good advice from the front line.  Then after lunch everyone was able to spend 2 hours with an experienced examiner in their art unit to talk the specific case the new examiners were working.  This was very helpful as I got to ask questions that dealt with my case with someone who all the ins and outs of the applications in the art unit.  I also got some advice as to what to learn (e.g. the US classification system which may or may not phase out starting next year).  After that every was able to work on their cases for a day and half uninterrupted.  I was able to get pretty far.  Hopefully sometime next week I will be able submit my first First Office Action on the Merits (FOAM)!  I will be so excited when it is complete!

When I come home, my roommate Ryan always ask me, "Who's dream did you crush today?" He thinks it takes way too long to get a patent and too many get rejected.  Then I try to explain to him how the patent system really works.  However I chuckle to myself when I hear him ask me that.

On Sunday I will be going a National's game at Nationals Park in DC with Thrivent Financial for Lutherans.  I will watching Gio Gonzalez and the best team in baseball play in a beautiful, new stadium with 139 other people who signed up through Thrivent.  The ticket comes with $10 value for concessions or merchandise.  I think I see National's gear in some people's future. haha.  More the game later.

1 Month Down

It may be hard to believe, but I have successfully completed 1 month of work at a real, full time job!  Sometimes it is hard for me to believe too.  I want thank everyone who has been there for me as I go through this life transition.  The Patent Training Academy (PTA) has been a lot learning the statutory laws, case laws, how to use those laws while examining, how to search for prior art (US patents, pre-grant publications, non-patent literature, and patents issued from other countries), and how to write office actions.  There is many things to keep track of and it is all new to me.  So I have to ask my trainer (yes like I am a pokemon) and mentors (primary examiners in my art unit) for help.  My mentors have years of experience to share with me including a thesaurus they have built up for terms in my art for searching.  Knowing how to search well will tremendously help for this job.  It will make writing first office actions on the merits (FOAM) easier and stronger.  A quality first search will also help make second actions final, if not it will hurt my production.  So I hope to pick up that skill quick!  Next week things get serious,  the new examiners start examining patents.

Almost all of time is spent working, studying for the LSAT (Oct 6th), or basic life activities (cleaning, cooking, laundry, finances).  There is time for fun things, but not too much.  It will be more of the same from now until Oct 6th which is ok with me.  It will keep me out of trouble.

Air and Space Museum

This morning I went with Jon to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.  I have never been to Washington DC before, so I had never gone here before.  We rose early so we could get there when it opened and be in one of the tours given by the volunteer docents.  I was amazed by entire collection they had.  They had many things that had significant relevance.  Some the big things were the plane used at Kitty Hawk by the Wright brothers, the Spirit of St. Louis, WWII planes, V-2 rocket, and ton of space stuff.  The tour was pretty good, but we had to cut it short because we did not budget enough time to see the whole museum and we had tickets for a planetarium movie.  (It was the same one as I saw on a trip to Chicago at the Adler Planetarium a few years with my family, but I didn't realize it until we were in the theater).  I got a discount for the tickets because I am a Smithsonian Member now.  Then we needed to leave because time ran out and other things had to be done.  I need to go back to museum because I did not have enough time to see and read everything I wanted to on this shortened trip.  It will be a day trip next time for sure!  After that we to Barnes and Nobles and had lunch at the Green Turtle.  Then I came home to get some homework and work done around the house.

Since pictures are worth 1000 words, here they are:

Me with the Plane Flown by the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk NC

Art Outside Museum

Space Rockets

V-2 Rocket

Rutan Voyager - the 1st plane to fly around the world without stopping or refueling 

Glider Used to Get Aerodynamic Data before 1900s

Lunar Lander

Apollo 11 Command Module Columbia 

Me Touching a Moon Rock

Japanese "Zero" from WWII

The Real DC

I just completed my 3rd week of work.  It was busy just like the other ones.  We have lectures and discussions in the morning about a statute or paragraph within a statute with the associated case law and how the patent system works (restrictions, work flow, performance metrics, Automated Information System (AIS)).  This week we went over statute 35 USC 103 which is used for prior art rejections of applications.  It is interesting to see how a single paragraph of law along its case law can have such a big impact on the way things are done.  Also we learned a little bit how we are to be rated as a probationary employee, which is what I am until 1 year after my start date, and non-probationary employee.  It deals with production, quality, docket management, and customer service.  There are bonuses associated with hitting certain marks, but I am not concerned with that right now.  Now I am focused on learning as much as I can about the statutes and what needs to be done to have as compact prosecution as possible.  Then after doing it the right way many times, I will be able decrease the amount of time needed to examine a case, which will put my production right where it needs to when I become a non-probationary employee.

Director Kappos (who has been mentioned and pictured in the blog before) came and spoke to us one afternoon after he was unable to make it to the first time he was scheduled to speak with us.  He covered a wide range of intellectual policy issues while he addressed us.  These included the where the PTO fits in between technology or innovation and the US economy, the patent litigation case between Apple and Samsung in San Jose (Case Info and 10 Things to Know About the Case), the recent decision of Mayo vs. Prometheus (Prometheus Info), and the patent office in general.  Then he took some questions wherein he mentioned 2 things he wanted to do: 1) Have a student loan reimbursement plan and 2) Implement a tuition reimbursement program for law school and graduate school (MS and PhD). I asked a question because nobody else was.  I used some of what he said about the patent office to butter him up and show him that I heard and understood what he told us.  Then I asked him about the 5 Yr Strategic Plan for the USPTO to decrease the time for first action to 10 months.  He mentioned the big hiring spree the PTO is on (1500 PE this year and maybe 1500 PE next year), the adjustments in management style and groups, and the IT department changes.  Now supposedly if you submit a patent today your first office action will come in 15 months.  Also he mentioned the dashboard, but Dad I did not have the heart to him what you told about the dashboard. haha.

Our Large Lecture Room in the Knox Building (and where Kappos addressed us)