Patent Law

'Peter Principle' Poster Boy Moves On

By Gary Odom and Jordan Kuhn

USPTO Director Jon W. Dudas is rumored to be resigning. Since taking office in July 2004, Dudas has displayed unprecedented aptitude for infantile outbursts against PTO employees and patentees; instilling opacity in agency operations enviable to Soviet apparatchiks; astonishing duplicity in diminishing patent quality while paying lip service to it; illegal, albeit futile gestures in changing examination rules; slave-driving employees with counterproductive production goals at the expense of decent examination; bodacious benign neglect of patent pendency, a tacit admission that the PTO is a lousy place to work, and nothing to be done about that except frenzied hiring; and roiling the patent community into a state of nonplus. Dudas will be sorely missed by commentators needing blog fodder.

No identifiable management or patent experience qualified Dudas for the post. He had previously been a political step-and-fetch-it in the House.

Rumor-monger Dennis Crouch got the scoop. Professor Crouch also praised Director Dudas' accomplishments.

Full post as published by The Patent Prospector on January 07, 2009 (boomark / email).