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In accepting this assignment on September 7, 1961, I replied in part: You have afforded me a challenge for a public service which in all conscience I cannot refuse, particularly in view of the opportunity it affords of working so closely with you, whom I regard as one of the best qualified, most fair and dedicated executives in the Government service.

Thereafter, I entered into a formal contract with the U.S. Department of Commerce "to undertake a full review and study of the organization, procedures, and personnel policies of the U.S. Patent Office and submit to the Commissioner of Patents a written report on all three of these phases" by June 30, 1962. I wrote into the contract as sole consideration for my services "the opportunity for public service and for no further compensation." In keeping with the spirit of this latter term we agreed that there would be no public release concerning the pendency of the study or my participation therein, except as you and the Department of Commerce might determine

necessary.

With this most satisfactory background of relations, my study group and I have worked most happily and, we hope, effectively toward the foregoing objectives of the management study. Words are inadequate to describe my satisfaction with the dedicated efforts of so many who contributed to the project, including the loyal, fairminded, and able Patent Office employees listed hereafter in the report. To the extent that this report has merit, they must receive the major credit. Mine has been only the lesser role of the leader who assumes final responsibility. I have at various times during the survey acted as planner, coordinator, demanding boss, catalyst, needler of Government brass, and finally editor. For the remainder of my contractual term I will revert to the needler role during the implementation period that I expect will follow this report.

This study would not have been possible without the understanding and support of several senior Government executives, whose assistance I wish to acknowledge here.

I am grateful to the Honorable Luther H. Hodges, Secretary of Commerce, and to the Honorable Edward Gudeman, Under Secretary of Commerce, for their support and continuing interest in the progress of the project, as evidenced by their frequent and knowledgeable inquiries. Also, I must acknowledge with appreciation the interest, cooperation, and support of the Honorable William Ruder, Assistant Secretary for Administration and Public Affairs, in connection with implementation of my first urgent recommendations on Patent Office phys cal facilities.

Outside of the Department of Commerce, several officials have been helpful during the project. However, I must specially acknowledge here the critical support, from the beginning, of the Honorable John W. Macy, Jr., Chairman of the Civil Service Commission, and the Honorable Sam R. Broadbent. Chief, Commerce and Finance Division, Bureau of the Budget. These two outstanding career public servants personally participated in the planning of the management survey project, maintained interest and afforded policy guidance in the project during the past 6 months, and were particularly helpful in obtaining necessary personnel for the study. Several of their key subordinates at the Civil Service Commission and the Bureau of the Budget have likewise been helpful to us and most understanding of our objectives.

Finally, I acknowledge with grateful thanks your constant support and encouragement throughout the past 6 months. At no time have you in any way directly or indirectly interfered with the course of the study or sought to influence or suggest our final recommendations in this report. At the same time you have promptly arranged to meet each of my requests in aid of the management survey. In these 6 months I have found no reason to alter my judgment of you as a public servant, as expressed above in my letter to you of September 7, 1961. Likewise, I have no doubt that you will keep faith with us in promptly considering and effectuating such of the recommendations of this report as are merited and practicable in your judgment.

As you will recall, I was reluctant to embark upon this management survey without your assurance that the results of the survey would be so implemented. We both were aware of previous studies of the Patent Office which were laid on the shelf to collect dust.

Should you choose to accept all or even the majority of our recommendations and should that produce eventually a fair degree of improvement, our group shall not have succeeded in having made a contribution of lasting nature unless we can induce you to create organizational machinery through which the Patent Office constantly can look at itself objectively.

The recommendations which we make in this report will soon be obsolete. They must not be considered as anything more than attempts to begin to bring the Office up to date. Our recommendations should be discarded as soon as time and/or events prove them less than the most efficient way of doing things. However, to do this you need a built-in self-appraisal operation. Ideally, every employee of the Patent Office should constantly be seeking ways to improve existing practices and procedures. In fact, they are probably capable of doing it but there has to be a catalyst for most of us to take that extra step. We are convinced that that organization is healthiest in which top management not only welcomes improvement but concerns itself with improvement as a matter of policy. Accordingly, we strongly urge you to establish the staff Office, which we recommended in that portion of the report dealing with organization, under the name of Planning, Control, and Operations Audit. This staff arm should not be permitted to take on the aura of a "bully" because it has the Commissioner's ear but rather it should constitute an easy way to communicate (back and forth) with the Commissioner about matters dealing with getting the big job done well.

This report does not make recommendations for the assignment or reassignment of specific persons. Notwithstanding this, I recommend that if possible you undertake to secure the services of Mr. Joseph U. Damico as Head of the Planning, Control, and Operations Audit Unit. I realize that Mr. Damico's present position and responsibilities at the Civil Service Commission are important; and for that reason, Mr. Damico may be reluctant to leave and the Civil Service Commission may be reluctant to release him. However, he is a man of extraordinary capacity whose quality I have had full opportunity to appraise in his work under my supervision during the conduct of this management survey. Moreover, I know that in his work on the management survey he gained the confidence and cooperation of the personnel of the Patent Office. The wide acquaintance with the problems and operations of the Patent Office and his insights into

them, gained through his work in this survey, are too valuable an asset for the Patent Office to discard.

One of the objectives of the Planning, Control, and Operations Audit Group is to provide continuity as well as comprehensiveness in the management of the Patent Office. For this reason I recommend that the position of Director of Planning, Control, and Operations Audit be clearly established as a career position and that all regulations designed so to establish the position be adopted. Further, in my opinion, the position is one of such extraordinary responsibility that I am convinced that a grade of no less than GS-16 should be allocated to it.

In addition to this report and its attachments the following management survey background material will be turned over to you:

(1) Replies of Patent Office practitioners in response to our questionnaire.

(2) The replies of the practitioners coded according to area of interest with brief summaries attached.

(3) Detailed breakdown of arts in divisions.

(4) Compilation of miscellaneous recommendations accumulated during the management survey.

In closing, I wish again to pay tribute to those persons listed early in this report who have put so much effort into this management survey. I intend to write them personal letters for inclusion in their personnel folders. In all fairness I here must single out Harvey Kauffman for special attention. As you know, we induced him to return to the Patent Office from a much deserved retirement to assist in this management survey. He was the full-time assistant who provided technical and legal advice, as well as doing more than his share of the creative work. Mr. Kauffman is industrious, dedicated, highly qualified, creative, forward looking, and flexible-in short, one of the most outstanding of many outstanding Federal employees whom I met in my 16 years of Federal service.

One more comment. The recommendation that Patent Office examiners not be required to possess a law degree may be the basis of charges that I am seeking to downgrade the profession of law. For nearly a quarter of a century since my admission to practice law I have devoted a large portion of my time to enhancement and improvement of the profession that I love. I would never deny the necessary contributions that men trained in the law can and must make to effective Federal Government, and particularly in the U.S. Patent Office. There the need for capable law-trained men and women will increase, not abate. However, there is equal need, too, for capable men and women trained in other professional disciplines. These needs are not mutually exclusive.

I thank you (and my law partners and wife) opportunity to perform a public service.

Sincerely,

for providing me an

EARL W. KINTNER.

CONTENTS

F. Controlling the quality of patents and stimulating production__

G. The organization__

Part IV-Attachments, including various charts and work papers of the

management survey staff..

Included in this part are attachments which are referenced in the

body of the report. Also included are subreports and working papers

which are essential to the evaluation of the whole report. [Those at-

tachments designated by an asterisk are not reprinted but are fully

identified here. Copies of the report as initially submitted are on file

and available to the public in both the search room and Technical

Library at the Patent Office.] A briefly annotated list of attachments

follows:

Attachment No. 1. Early management survey_reports.--

Attachment No. 1a. Report of Committee for Identification of Patent

Office Problems, July 31, 1961----

Attachment No. 1b.* Summary of positions taken by the American

Patent Law Association on patent practice and procedures. 1957-

61.

Attachment No. 1c. Summary of comments received from patent

practitioners registered to practice before U.S. Patent Office as a

result of the management survey questionnaire dated October 16,

1961.

Attachment No. 2. Bibliography and list (not printed) of persons con-

tacted during the survey..

Attachment No. 3.* Personnel Policy, March 1961, U.S. Atomic

Energy Commission.

Attachment No. 4.* Promotion Program of the U.S. Patent Office,
Commissioner's Administrative Order No. 21 (Revised).

Attachment No. 5.* AEC Headquarters Calendar of Training Activ-
ities, January 1, 1961.

Attachment No. 6.* Executive Development and Selection, Personnel
Handbook, Appendix 4152, U.S. Atomic Energy Commission.
Attachment No. 7.* Review Group Procedure for Competitive Selec-
tion used by the Atomic Energy Commission field offices.

Attachment No. 8.* A Guide for Executive Selection, Personnel

Methods Series No. 13, October 1961. U.S. Civil Service Com-

mission.

133

Part IV-Attachments-Continued
Attachment No. 9. Graphs indicating the patent examiner turnover
by months (1959, 1960, 1961); the relationship of the patent ex-
aminer separations by examining groups and selected divisions;
and the patent examiner turnover by grade for period July 1, 1960
to June 30, 1961-

Attachment No. 10. Tables comparing salary ranges of Patent Office
professional positions with weighted national averages of profes-
sional positions.

1960-61.

Attachment No. 11.* U.S. Patent Office salary survey, December
1961.
Attachment No. 12.* Summary of Proceedings, Personnel Manage-
ment Conference, April 12-15, 1961. U.S. Patent Office.
Attachment No. 13.* Graph comparing clerical salary ranges of
Patent Office with weighted national averages of clerical positions.
1960-61.

Attachment No. 14.* Graph comparing salary ranges of Patent Office
professional positions with weighted national averages of profes-
sional positions. 1960-61.

Attachment No. 15.* Major portion of substance included in Recom-
mendation 27 of this report.

Attachment No. 16.* Commentaria-Suggested Outline of New
Patent System. Journal of the Patent Office Society, September
1957, vol. XXXIX, No. 9, p. 689.

Attachment No. 17.* Statistical summaries pertaining to Board of
Appeals, Board of Patent Interferences, and Trademark Trial and
Appeal Board operations.

Attachment No. 18.* Digests of suggestions re Board of Appeals,
Board of Patent Interferences, and Trademark Trial and Appeal
Board operations.

Attachment No. 19. Recommended detailed breakdown of the Patent
Examining Groups -

Attachment No. 20.* Internal memorandum concerning possible estab-
lishment of positions of Patent Technicians.

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