Trademark Office Experiments with Telecommuting for Attorneys
According to an article in the Washington Post, The United States Patent & Trademark Office has initiated a telecommuting pilot project for its examining attorneys, allowing them to work from home…wherever that home may be.
Under this pilot program, ten experienced trademark attorneys possessing good job-performance ratings, will be permitted to move away from the Washington, D.C. area anywhere in the continental United States.
The only condition for this program is that the attorneys must commute once a week to Alexandria headquarters, at their own expense. The United States Patent & Trademark Office can then keep the employees on the roster at agency headquarters and avoid activation of legal mandates for reimbursement of employee travel and per diems.
The ultimate goal is to eventually have the attorneys visit headquarters less frequently than once a week, whether they live in North Carolina or Florida.
Trademark lawyers can typically apply to telecommute after they have worked at the agency more than two years and show they can successfully meet high production standards. Typical locations these attorneys are looking to relocate to are Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Delaware, and Illinois.