POPA Fires Back at Alleged USPTO Labor, CBA Violations

The Patent Office Professional Association (POPA), the union that represents patent examiners, has filed an Unfair Labor Practice charge against the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The charge alleges that a POPA representative was denied “an opportunity to comment, speak and make statements during a formal discussion of personnel policies, practices and general conditions of employment with bargaining unit employees during an ‘All Patents Employee Meeting’ conducted on March 27, 2025,” according to the filing posted to POPA’s website this week.

Section 7114(a)(2)(A) of the Unfair Labor Relations statute, “Representation rights and duties,” states:

“(2)     An exclusive representative of an appropriate unit in an agency shall be given the opportunity to be represented at–

(A) any formal discussion between one or more representatives of the agency and one or more employees in the unit or their representatives concerning any grievance or any personnel policy or practices or other general condition of employment;…”

The charge was filed with the Federal Labor Relations Authority on April 28 and addressed to Acting Commissioner for Patents, Valencia Wallace. Richard Hirn is representing POPA in the charge.

Telework Tumult

Several days earlier, on April 24, POPA filed a grievance against the USPTO over the Office’s April 14, 2025 “Notice for Return to Office of Probationary Patent Examiners.” The Notice was sent via email to probationary patent and trademark examiners and informed them that all “probationary Patent Examiners . . . who live within 50 miles will be directed to report to the USPTO headquarters . . . for one-year.” The POPA website mentions that they also received the Notice but it has not been posted to the site.

According to the grievance, addressed to Acting Director of Labor Relations Sonya Penn, the Notice sent to POPA by the USPTO’s Acting Chief Administrative Officer Anne Mendez in April violates the “Telework Agreement for Patent Employees Hired to Work Remotely from a USPTO Office” dated November 8, 2022. That agreement said “probationary patent examiners could participate in both the Patents Fulltime Telework Program or Patents Partial Telework Program.”

The “Patents Partial Telework Program 2022 Agreement” dated February 7, 2022, “permits probationary employees to telework up to 40 hours a pay period,” according to the POPA grievance.

Because the April 14 Notice also bars telework eligibility for one year, “it will prohibit patent examiners who complete their probationary period from teleworking until one year after their return to campus,” said the POPA letter.  The Notice therefore also violates the February 7, 2022 “Patents Full-Time Telework Program,” which provides three telework options for all examiners who have completed their probationary program.

In December 2024, the USPTO and POPA signed a new collective bargaining agreement (CBA) with POPA, the first new CBA with the union since 1986. The new CBA has a five-year term and included a “Side Agreement to Retain Memorandums of Understanding” that retains the three agreements mentioned above “until the expiration of the new master collective bargaining agreement on June 30, 2029.”

The POPA grievance explained:

“Although the parties agreed in a February 8, 2025 Memorandum of Understanding that patent examiners hired during the during the government-wide hiring freeze will work on-campus for the duration of their probationary period, there was no agreed-upon change to the status and eligibility of telework for those probationary employees hired before that date.”

According to the grievance, the USPTO’s April 14 Notice claims that “the telework agreements between POPA and the USPTO ‘are unlawful and cannot be enforced.’” Such an assertion is an unfair labor practice in violation of the Federal Service Labor Management Relations Statute, 5 U.S.C. § 7116(a)(1) and (5), argued POPA.

The grievance added that any attempt to enforce the Trump Administration’s Return to In-Person Work Order violates Section 7116(a)(7), “which makes it an unfair labor practice ‘to enforce any rule or regulation . . . which is in conflict with any applicable collective bargaining agreement if the agreement was in effect before the date the rule or regulation was prescribed.’”

The POPA grievance went on to cite five other statutes that “require the USPTO to permit telework ‘to the maximum extent possible.’”

Affected employees would have to report to the Alexandria office on May 27, 2025.

POPA is asking that the April 14 Notice be rescinded and that the Office complies with the CBA.

Irakli Kiknadze, Director of Grievances, is acting for POPA in the matter.