if everyone’s an expert, someone’s losing their job
One of the year-long projects I am working on within mechanical engineering (namely aerial acoustic localization) has a broad, engineering design lecture component that all of the ME students in my year sit in for. There are a few random assignments thrown out in the lecture as well as the occasional attendance quiz, so, despite the frequently sleep-inducing topics and speakers, the lecture is fairly well attended. Almost a month ago, we had a guest speaker from the mechanical engineering branch of the United States Patent & Trademark Office [USPTO].
Apart from a PowerPoint preso that violated every presentation tenet known to mankind (including a slide that suddenly changed EVERYTHING TO ALL CAPS EVEN THOUGH THE SLIDE CONTENT WAS NO MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE OTHER SLIDES FORE OR AFT), his charisma was lacking, his confidence absent, and his tone monotonous. He showed us the USPTO internal patent searching system software that he uses day in and day out and also showed us how inept he was at using his own computer.
Eventually, he got to the point in his presentation where he mentioned job opportunities at the USPTO and brought up the salary numbers. Starting salary for a mechanical engineering patent examiner is around $60,000, with a $5,000 to $10,000 signing bonus. What? I could sense all of us sleeping engineering students wake up at the sound of a few, generous pay stubs. I was ready for the barrage of questions regarding what exactly does a patent examiner do all day, because some of us might just be interested?
Summarizing his words and from what he showed us thereafter, a patent examiner sits in an office and goes through patent applications one-at-a-time. With care and diligence, a patent examiner studies the applications and makes dozens if not hundreds of searches for each application to discover if any other prior work is involved or related. A patent examiner’s job boils down to quotas, as our speaker said, and the more applications you push out the door, the faster you climb the ladder. It’s a one-man job (who relies entirely on his speed at getting around a search engine) and competing with your fellow workers is not only the way to success it is blatantly encouraged. [Maybe not-so-ironically enough, after class a few friends of mine spoke to the man who confided that turnover is unspeakably common in his area; if an examiner makes it four years into the job, he's pulling for the team].
Wednesday evening, I spoke to my roommate about this because he had mentioned some dull jobs he was applying for in similar quota-based fields. Then, today, I find this article which is absolutely amazing and brings home how flawed the American patent system is. For some quality Washington Post reading, check that out.
October 19th, 2007 at 10:16 am
Yo. I found your blog randomly. I have been trying to find people to ride with in the Blue Ridge. I am more of a Cross Country / Freeride type guy but I have access to a road bike. If you are interested in riding, let me know.
-drew
October 21st, 2007 at 10:28 pm
If you’re interested in cyclocross stuff, then you might want to sign up for the listserv here and come out to some of the practices, typically Wednesday and/or Thursday nights. There is a huge cyclocross race happening at VT in the beginning of November.
Also, as you’ll see from the listserv emails, we do weekly Sat & Sun road rides often around 55-60 miles. Most of the other training is just done solo, particularly now that the evenings are very short and it’s tough to arrange departures any earlier than about 6pm on a weekday.
October 24th, 2007 at 7:06 pm
You might be interested to know, if you don’t already, that Einstein started his career as a patent examiner in Switzerland and spent quite a few years in that job, eventually coming to think that no university would ever have him. Knowing that you are widely read, I would highly recommend the new Einstein biography by Walter Issacson. I read it this summer, it is excellent.