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The Power of Arsy

By Gary Odom and Jordan Kuhn

Patent Examiners have been getting a bad rap in the patent blogosphere. Insults attacking their competence, work ethic, intelligence, moral character, and English skills are flung. In moments of weakness, this author has occasionally chimed in. But examiner incompetence should not be so easily disparaged. It should instead be respected and appreciated as better than the alternative.

Most examiners, like most everyone, are randomly competent ("rc" or arsy). Those with competence tend not to stick around, opting, after a short stint, to become patent agents, attorneys, engineers, and sometimes lowly patent blog writers. If attrition rates truly are decreasing, as Dudas proclaims, even fewer competent examiners are being hired. Good!

What these examiners lack in competence: slow uptake, no nose to the grindstone, sputtering English fluency, they make up for in consistency, and, in time, experience. Over time, prosecutors develop relationships with career examiners. Their lack of competence is predictable, and over time they can be educated; as relationships develop, examiners often become easier to work with.

Career examiners are certainly easier to work with than a fledgling Joe Schmo, fresh off the patent-academy-boat, hell-bent on impressing his supervisor, and leaving the PTO just as you start to make progress with getting to allowance. When Joe Schmo leaves after his two-year stint, his caseload is then passed to another fresh fish, and the education process must begin anew.

So, give me Mr. Patent-examining-is-my-life's-work over Joe Schmo any day of the week - I'll take him, train him, and make the best of it. After all, it's an arsy world.

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"Random competence" defines the Collective, the great mass of humanity - passable performance when everything is hunky dory, but prone to random acts of incompetence, particularly when operating out of routine. The cause is failure of comprehension and conceptualization, of not having a working mental model. Hence, randomly competent means generally incompetent, but okay at the easy stuff; at a glance, one may be fooled for a time. In other words, people are less than they seem, the rare exceptions to be cherished. The acronym for random competence is "rc", hence the adjectival nickname "arsy," as in, "well, that's arsy."

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Full post as published by The Patent Prospector on August 24, 2008 (boomark / email).