The performance of USPTO managers and FOIA officers who seek to suppress information about patent operations that may shed light on corrupt managerial practices -should be judged under their performance appraisal plans as evidence of poor performance.
For example, for managers who order destruction of documents such as the manager who ordered the destruction of 2nd pair of eyes lists as revealed in an email released under FOIA request 07-370 (this email was dated August 15, 2006 and sent at 12:44 PM), this type of behavior for managers should be frowned upon and should be appraised negatively.
Comments (2)
File a complaint within business channels. This is NOT the appropriate forum for internal dirty laundry. If you have been slighted, seek redress with the IG. Or just leave for a better opportunity where you feel valued.
To blogs: I disagree with the reference to this serious topic as "dirty laundry" - this topic is pertinent and germane to the mission of an open government's iniative.
Policies which are based on politicization, cronyism and corruption are not only harmful to employees but to the public. A FOIA Request obtained an email which is now available to the public which shows that a manager ordered the destruction of key documents associated with the 2nd pair of eyes program which is a program that many inventors had complaints about for delaying their patents.
The public has an interest that patent operations such as these are administered in a fair and transparent fashion and for its stated mission, rather than being used for pretextual reasons which have the effects of exacerbating the patent backlog, worsening patent quality in many areas, and creating an artificial funding scarcity by suppressing allowance rates.