New best practices at U.S. Patent and Trademark Office save time, taxpayer dollars

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is changing the way it does business in order to eliminate its massive backlog and save taxpayer dollars -- and part of that process involves changing the relationship between managers and the unions.

The patent office is currently facing a $200 million funding shortfall for the current fiscal year, which started Oct. 1, and dealing with a backlog of 1.2 million patent applications, counting those that are being processed right now.

USPTO Director David Kappos said this is unacceptable.

"It's stifling innovation in the U.S. It's holding back American innovators from introducing products and services. We're going to fix that problem. . . . The first thing that we've already done was -- we had to change the management system, the way examiners are incented to do their work, the way they're measured, and what motivates them to spend their time. That's called the Examiner Count System."

Thus, Kappos said, union leaders and managers met to exchange ideas. About a month later, the system, which hadn't been looked at for over 30 years, changed.

"We now have a new way for examiners to be measured and incentivized that significantly changes the way they'll be doing their work and that, we believe, will cause them to work much more efficiently. . . . What [the examining corps] can expect is, first of all, something that was very important to me, to the management team, and to the examiners -- which is to get more time to do the right thing up front. So, this is basic management that's giving people the tools and the incentive to get to issues quickly the first time, and, thereby, avoid rework and redo."

The most critical factor that facilitated this change was getting the unions and managers to start talking in the first place. Kappos said the unions are important because they are close to the action and the actual work that goes on at PTO.

"To me, it was fundamental that we team with the unions from the beginning. That we have management and union in complete unanimity -- in lockstep every step of the way. So what I did when I first started was to convene the union leadership and the management in a big conference room here at the PTO, figuratively lock the door (I didn't literally lock the door), went in and coached them all and said, 'Look, we're going to get this thing done. We're going to do it ourselves. We're going to do it in a month and a half. . . . I'll be in here to help break deadlocks and to mediate any issues that come up. I'll be guided by the principles of doing the right thing for our agency, for our employees and for our country -- and that's all I'll be guided by'."

And it worked.

Kappos said he returned every week to meet with the union and management and a deal was struck. He said both sides deserve credit for the success.

He said it was the element of trust that helped facilitate cooperation.

"I was careful to choose a senior management leader who has got a very high EQ -- a demonstrated ability to work with the union leadership, to listen really well, to respond really well on the merits, to be very balanced in her thinking and in her approach. She's got tremendous credibility with the senior union representation, and with union membership."

Kappos said he had to be sure to pick someone he could trust because the changes had to be voted on by union members.

"We had to be sure that we were not only working well with the union leadership, but had credibility in a product that would stand the scrutiny of an incredibly educated and detailed workforce, which is our 6,000 plus patent examiners."

Therefore, he concludes, it is certainly possible for unions and managers to not only work together, but discover solutions that result in the best decisions for all federal employees, but there's a lot to keep in mind.

"You do have to select a very defined and specific goal -- something that everyone can orient to and understand from the beginning. Something that's core to the mission of your agency. It's got to be perceived and actually in the best interest of both the employees -- meaning the union representation -- and of management. So, there's got to be a shared, collective, net-positive objective that you're all working toward.

"Then you've got to set a specific timeline -- a date-certain when this thing will end, because otherwise people will spend infinite amounts of effort achieving modest outcomes.

"You've got to provide interim checkpoints -- so, milestones.

"And, probably most importantly, I felt I had to make myself available to both sides separately and to the two groups collectively -- or the single, larger group collectively -- in order to help them through any problems. Then, I had to display both a principle-based decision-making approach, which is why it was important to me to lay out principles from the beginning, including one which has become kind of famous at the agency, which is 'Do no harm'."

Kappos said that was perhaps the most important aspect of success -- letting the patent examiners know that, no matter what, no one was working to set any of them back or hinder the ability for anyone to perform his or her job.

"It generated both the trust and the clarity -- and the timeframe -- that people needed in order to go out and accomplish something substantial."

He said efforts are continuing at PTO in the hopes of changing the way employees work, including the possibility of expanding telework programs and implementing newer technologies within the agency.

Read David Kappos' blog.