if everyone’s an expert, someone’s losing their job
Friday, October 19th, 2007One 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.
