Patent Office Spares Examiners in Probationary Staff Firings (1)

The US Patent and Trademark Office has terminated some probationary employees not working in “mission critical” roles, but patent examiners and trademark examining attorneys were unaffected.

“Today, a small number of probationary employees separated from the agency,” Valencia Martin Wallace, the acting commissioner for patents, wrote in an email to employees in the agency’s patents business unit seen by Bloomberg Law. “Patent examiners, trademark examining attorneys, and mission critical employees were not included in this action.”

The number of affected staff hasn’t been made public. The agency declined to comment.

Terminated PTO employees received a letter Thursday from Carolyn P. ...