Patent examiner
A patent examiner is an employee, usually a civil servant with a scientific or engineering background, working at a patent office.
Duties
Due to a long-standing and incessantly growing backlog of unexamined patent applications, examiners have a very limited amount of time to determine patentability of disclosed inventions. Ill-defined "tenure rules", as well as pressure to work overtime to meet the "production quotas", result in very high attrition rates among patent examiners, especially at the USPTO. The attrition of patent examiners is so severe that "in some years the USPTO loses more examiners than it hires".Some patent applications are easy for an examiner to assess, but others require considerably more time. This has given rise to controversy: on April 13, 2007, a "Coalition of Patent Examiner Representatives" expressed concern that
Offices
European Patent Office
Patent examiners at the European Patent Office carry out examination and opposition procedures for patent applications originating anywhere in the world and seeking protection in any of the member states of the European Patent Organisation.Candidates for examiner positions must meet certain minimum requirements:
- EPO member state nationality;
- degree in engineering or in science;
- good knowledge of two languages out of German, English and French with a willingness to learn the third.
Most EPO examiners are represented by SUEPO, a trade union.
United States Patent and Trademark Office
Patent examiners at the United States Patent and Trademark Office examine patent applications for claims of new inventions. Examiners make determinations of patentability based on policies and guidance from this agency, in compliance with federal laws, rules, judicial precedents, and guidance from agency administrators.[Image:Production report.jpg|right|thumb|Biweekly Production Report]
Examiners are hired at the GS-5, GS-7, GS-9 or GS-11 grade levels.
Patent examiners in the U.S. have responsibilities that are commensurate with their GS level. Promotions from GS-7 to GS-14 are non-competitive. At GS-13 they are eligible to start the "Partial Signatory Authority" program, a testing phase to see if an examiner can apply patent concepts and laws. Upon passing the "Partial Signatory Program", a patent examiner is given signatory authority to sign all of their own non-final rejections and other non-final communications to applicants. After a waiting period a patent examiner may take part in an additional testing phase known as the "Full Signatory Authority" program. When a patent examiner has passed the FSA program, they are given "Full Signatory Authority" and can sign all of their own "office actions" without review and approval by a supervisor. Such examiners are also able to review and sign actions of "junior examiners". Upon completion of the "Full Signatory Authority program", an examiner is advanced from GS-13 to GS-14 and is referred to as a "primary examiner".
According to the USPTO, an examiner is measured entirely by their own performance, without regard to the performance of others.
To work as an examiner at the USPTO, a person must be a U.S. citizen and pass a background investigation.
Experienced examiners have an option of working primarily from home through a hoteling program implemented in 2006 by the USPTO.
A 2023 study looked into how political preferences of USPTO examiners affect their propensity to allow patent claims. They found no statistically significant difference except for the case when the most politically active examiners examine software patents. In this case Republican-leaning examiners are more likely to issue patents than Democrat-leaning examiners.