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To: pater tenebrarum who wrote (55754)	1/9/2001 1:02:07 PM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 436258

My husband is a Patent Examiner for the US Patent Office and a member of the Union - the article you linked reports that Union has approved the deal for a steep pay raise (10%) in return for agreeing to move to computer searches rather than paper, but it's not a done deal yet. OPM has to sign off on it still. According to my husband, the computer searches are nowhere near as efficient as the old style paper searches. It only takes a few second to sort through old paper patents, which are still kept in cardboard boxes, just as Thomas Jefferson set it up a couple hundred years ago. In contrast, each page in the computer takes a few seconds to come up. The slowdown causes lack of productivity, and patent examiners get bonuses for extra productivity, so they will be taking a salary hit to switch over to the computers. My husband has been working with the computers for a while so he thinks he will still get his bonuses - but even with the 10% pay raise, the 3% COLA and his usual 5% bonus, his pay is nothing compared to what patent attorneys make. That's why the USPTO has to give the raises - due to high demand in the private sector the turnover is quite high.