Patent Chief Downplays Widespread Change After Trump Tosses CBA

Leadership at the US Patent and Trademark Office sought to tamp down fears of significant change at the agency, such as widespread return to office mandates, the day after President Donald Trump nullified union protections for over half its employees.

Acting Director Coke Morgan Stewart informed managers of patent examiners in a Friday morning meeting that the agency doesn’t plan to change its telework policy, part-time work or bonus program for examiners after the loss of union protections, according to three people who attended and requested anonymity to divulge private discussions.

Before Trump’s order Thursday, the Patent Office Professional Association’s collective bargaining agreement covered more than 8,000 patent examiners. Those protections shielded them from several mandates in the early months of the administration, including a push to return to in-person work. Stewart said the agency doesn’t plan to change the telework policy because of a lack of sufficient space at its Alexandria, Va., headquarters, according to the attendees.

Left unsaid, however, was that the lack of a CBA now allows those changes to be made quicker and more easily than in the past, according to one manager who attended the meeting. The meeting was scheduled on Wednesday evening, according to three managers who received the email invitation.

The PTO declined to comment for this story.

Trump’s executive order expands on one issued in March similarly nullifying union protections for employees across 40 agencies and sub-agencies, which spurred multiple lawsuits from government employee unions.

POPA has been around since 1964. Its most recent CBA, signed in 2024, outlined protections including grievance and arbitration rights. The PTO’s teleworking policy predates the COVID-19 pandemic, and has been in place for roughly three decades.

The union sent employees an email early Friday afternoon responding to Trump’s executive order, saying “We are still here !” according to a copy reviewed by Bloomberg Law.

“The fight has just started to restore your bargaining unit rights,” POPA president Patricia Duffy wrote. “We are in the process of starting up a third party dues paying and communication platform.”

She added the email was “likely the last communication that the Agency will allow me to send to members” who should stay tuned to the union website.

Duffy and the union declined to comment on their plans for a response to the executive order.

“The most important part of a CBA is that all employees covered by it are treated fair and equitable,” former POPA president Kathy Duda told Bloomberg Law. “All employees should be treated the same as far as working conditions with no favoritism.”

Examiner Panic

Patent examiners are concerned and frustrated by the executive order, according to four examiners who spoke to Bloomberg Law under a condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters. They said the executive order left them wondering whether their telework guarantees were intact and if they had to begin searching for a new job.

“Is that even legal?” one examiner said. “Guess I’ll look up U-hauls to Alexandria.”

Duda said she was concerned about eroding telework protections. The PTO already posted new patent examining positions earlier this year as non-union and non-telework eligible jobs, after it secured a hiring freeze exemption. New examiners started at the office this week.

Trump’s executive order included the patents unit and information office at the PTO as agency subdivisions whose “primary function” is “intelligence, counterintelligence, investigative, or national security work” which bars employees from unionizing.

Another examiner who reviews design patents said they questioned the national security implications of work that often covers things like the ornamental appearance of sneakers, dog bowls or pool toys.

Others predicted the agency would increase examiners’ productivity targets, which affect their performance evaluations—something it’s already done in other units like the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.