Bob Stoll Quoted in Bloomberg BNA Article on Report of PTO Employees

Washington, D.C. partner and co-chair of the IP Group Bob Stoll was quoted in a Bloomberg BNA article titled, “Patent Examiners May Have Claimed $18M in Unworked Hours.” The article a recent auditor’s report that shows Government patent examiners claimed credit for at least 288,000 hours they may not have worked and that the actual number of claimed hours could even be double that figure.

The report recommended that the PTO require examiners to badge in and out of the Arlington campus at all times in order to track hours more effectively.

As the former commissioner for the PTO, Bob told Bloomberg BNA that the PTO should "take corrective action” to better monitor employees' work hours, but also stressed the 2 percent gap is quite small and believes “the vast majority of employees there do an honest job.” He did emphasize that it still should have a system in place to monitor this activity.