The PTO will be consolidated in no more than eight contiguous buildings which will be interconnected by environmentally-controlled passageways. Currently, we are housed in 16 buildings which stretch along a one-half mile corridor in Crystal City. Consolidation of PTO space into an integrated complex will make it much easier for employees to access other work and support areas (e.g., personnel office, training center, and fitness center). Junior patent examiners, now housed two to an office, will have private offices at the new facility. The "team rooms" that will be strategically located throughout the facility will provide areas where examiners can exchange information in a small group setting or meet with applicants and/or their representatives. The space allocation plan for the consolidated facility calls for a universal grid, with all spaces constructed on a 120 occupiable square foot (OSF) module (e.g., clerical support workstations will be 60 or 80 OSF depending upon function, team rooms and private offices will be 120 OSF). Use of this grid approach will make it much easier and cheaper to implement process changes and/or organizational realignments in the future, since walls will not have to be moved in order to accommodate varying needs for office size. The resulting cost savings can be used for program delivery, training, and etc. The consolidated facility will be fully accessible to the disabled and will comply with all current building safety codes unlike our current space. The space allocation plan proposes provision of an on-site fitness facility, a child care facility, and a cafeteria similar to the recently consolidated facilities of the Internal Revenue Service, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Health Care Financing Administration. Studies have shown that such amenities promote employee health and well-being. I wish to elaborate on the question of how much space we would be saving by decreasing non-supervisory GS-1224 patent examiner office space and how much additional space would be allotted for meeting/conference rooms in our new building. The current patent examining staff consists of approximately 63 percent senior examiners and 37 percent junior examiners. Senior examiners occupy 150 OSF offices and junior examiners share interior 200 OSF or exterior 150 OSF offices. We are proposing that, at the consolidated facility, all PTO personnel (except our four political appointees) who occupy private offices (i.e., senior executives, supervisors, patent examiners, trademark examiners, and administrative staff whose functions require privacy) occupy the same size office 120 OSF. Therefore, management personnel would occupy smaller offices while junior examiners would occupy larger offices at the consolidated facility than they do now. - Assuming that the future examiner population is distributed in the same fashion as they are now, the estimated 3,027 examiners who will occupy the consolidated facility in 2001 would occupy about 398,000 OSF. If all patent examiners occupy 120 OSF offices, as management proposes, only 363,000 OSF will be required. Therefore, there is a net saving of 35,000 OSF from reducing the standard for examiner office size and guaranteeing single occupancy. It is important to note that this is not the only saving resulting from the proposal to establish a standard office size of 120 OSF. Significant savings accrue from assignment of 120 OSF offices standard to management and administrative personnel as well. Currently, there are approximately 1,100 trademark attorneys and other non-patent examiner personnel at Grade 13 and above, working in offices ranging from 150 to 350 OSF, who occupy 214,000 OSF of space. When reassigned to 120 OSF offices, these individuals will use 128,000 OSF, resulting in a saving of an additional 86,000 OSF. The combined saving realized by standardizing offices at 120 OSF is approximately 122,000 OSF. Currently, conference space constitutes approximately 2.1 percent of our 1.7 million OSF, exclusive of circulation. The space allocation plan for the consolidated facility allocates approximately 2.7 percent of the 2 million OSF facility for conferencing. This increase in conference room space will permit the PTO to accommodate large group meetings of employees or customers on site, and will significantly reduce the additional cost of renting space at local area hotels and conference facilities (as is now the case in Crystal City). The space allocation plan also proposes that 73,000 OSF of 120 OSF shared meeting rooms be strategically distributed throughout the consolidated facility. Private sector space planning studies have shown that modern workers spend much of their time in small group meetings, and that many of the meetings are held outside individual offices. By reducing the size of PTO management's offices, we will be able to distribute some of the saved space throughout the facility; thus, getting better utilization and, at the same time, promoting cross-communication and teamwork. QUESTION: Please compare the circulation space of the present PTO space with that of the new PTO space. ANSWER: A comparative analysis of the circulation space of our current space with that of the new PTO space reveals the following: The percentage of the consolidated PTO facility that will be consumed by circulation is unknown at this time. Space required for circulation can not be established until the facility is identified and preliminary interior designs for specific buildings are completed. Space required for circulation is influenced by such factors as size, shape and column spacing of a given building's floor plan; and the location of fixed core spaces like elevators, stairwells, restrooms and utility spaces. For planning purposes, the space allocation plan for the consolidated facility estimates that 29 percent of the 2 million square feet will be required for circulation. This percentage was developed based upon a 1994 GSA Space Utilization Study “A Guideline to Space Programming Multipliers". The study considered standards published in the Building Officials and Code Administrators' National Building Code (BOCA), the National Fire Protection Association's Life Safety Code (NFPA), the Uniform Federal Accessibility Standards (UFAS) and the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA). The study included an analysis from recently completed projects for the Food & Drug Administration, Securities and Exchange Commission, and Department of Justice. In recent projects for the U.S. Customs Service and the Internal Revenue Service, circulation factors required were 38 and 35 percent, respectively The PTO does not maintain detailed data on the amount of space used for circulation at its current facility Exact calculations of circulation space would require furniture layouts for open workstations and library and search room areas, in order to properly account for the amount of space required to access these areas. However, the PTO does maintain “as built” drawings that show the locations of offices and walled space. Based upon these “as built” drawings, we estimate that approximately 25 percent or 446,000 OSF of our current 1.7 million OSF is used for circulation. However, a number of the PTO's existing circulating corridors and layouts do not comply with current ADA and fire egress guidelines and will have to be widened at the consolidated facility. QUESTION: How will this effect the work environment of patent examiners? ANSWER: The improvements in space and working conditions previously mentioned will favorably impact the PTO patent examiner work environment. Training QUESTION: For the past two years, the Patent and Trademark Office has run a budget surplus. Your FY 99 budget request funds for approximately 86,000 hours of enhancement training for your clerical support staff and managers. Yet, other than initial training for new hires, I understand that PTO has phased out retraining for patent examiners. Given PTO's ongoing effort to reorganize it seems that some degree of retraining for patent examiners is necessary. What are PTO's plans for providing technical and legal retraining of patent examiners? ANSWER: May I first address your reference to PTO's budget surplus or profit. Since 1993, the PTO has carried forward unobligated balances, from one fiscal year to the next, ranging from $20 to $75 million. These balances do not represent surplus or profit. Rather, they constitute unobligated balances and unapportioned fee collections that result from unanticipated fee collections. Unobligated balances represent those funds that are apportioned by OMB, but not obligated by the PTO by the fiscal year end. Unapportioned fee collections represent advanced fee payments above the total amount of fee revenues apportioned by OMB for spending. Given the fact that we collect fees in advance for work to be done at a later date, these carryover amounts have costs associated with them costs that will be incurred in the following year. Earlier this year, I had provided your Subcommittee with a report that articulates my commitment to provide patent examiners the appropriate training opportunities to further their development and skill enhancement (Attachment 6). This report lists the technical, legal, and automation training programs available to examiners in 1998 including a breakout of numerous newly available programs. In addition to the information provided in the report, may I clarify that most of PTO's training programs do not segregate between probationary and non-probationary patent examiners. The one exception to this is the basic Patent Examination Initial Training (PEIT) program which is targeted for new patent examiners and focuses on providing training on the application of patent law, rules of practice, and examination procedures. Most other training programs are available to all examiners. In the automation arena, for example, as new automated tools are developed and deployed to patent examiners, just-in-time training is provided for all those who will be using the new tools. The table that follows depicts the number of training hours allotted for the PEIT program and for other examiner skill enhancement training. Additional details with regard to the nature of the training for 1998 is found in Attachment 6. In addition to the above noted training programs, examiners are provided one-on-one training throughout their career at the PTO. This one-on-one training is administered by both our Supervisory Patent Examiners (SPE) and our more experienced examiners, and is modeled like a coaching program designed to provide tailored, hands-on training to less experienced examiners. On the average, approximately 25 percent of SPEs' time is spent in training examiners. QUESTION: Commissioner Lehman, you testified that the PTO has an "extensive" program for training patent examiners which provides for continually updating skills and provides for examiners going out to visit industry. Respectively for Fiscal Years 1995 through 1998, excluding training for probationary patent examiners, how many training hours have been spent by nonsupervisory GS-1224 patent examiners updating their skills? ANSWER: The table below illustrates the one-on-one training and the total training hours for patent examiners. QUESTION: For Fiscal Year 1998, please provide a detailed narrative as to the nature of such training provided, as well as how many non-supervisory GS-1224 patent examiners are anticipated in such training. ANSWER: In addition to the above, some patent examiners have attended the PTO University, a continuing education program affiliated with accredited universities and offered by our Workforce Effectiveness Division. Since 1995, 65 patent examiners have participated in programs leading to graduate certificates in Information Management, Information Systems, and Legal Administration. QUESTION: Excluding probationary patent examiners, how many nonsupervisory GS-1224 patent examiners were there at the beginning of each of Fiscal Years 1995 through 1998? ANSWER: The number of patent examiners on board for the years mentioned are: FY 1995 - 1,671 FY 1996 - 1,723 FY 1997 1,805 |