Trademark Office to Experiment With Telecommuting

Want to work for a Washington area agency and live on the Florida coast, or in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, or among the bluebonnets of Texas?

As fanciful as that may seem, it will be possible under a telecommuting pilot project developed by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office -- inside the Beltway in Alexandria -- and one of its unions.

Under the pilot, 10 experienced trademark lawyers with good job-performance ratings will be permitted to move anywhere in the continental United States and work from home.

"To my knowledge, there is no other program like this in the federal government," said Howard Friedman , president of National Treasury Employees Union Chapter 245.

There is a catch. The lawyers must show up once a week at the Alexandria headquarters, at their own expense. That requirement will allow the PTO to keep the employees on the roster at agency headquarters and avoid triggering a law that mandates reimbursement for employee travel and per diems.

The "geographic expansion pilot," as the PTO calls the project, is scheduled to start next year and will be evaluated after six months. If the program is successful, the PTO plans to allow more lawyers to volunteer for it and to seek a waiver from Congress and the Bush administration so that the long-distance telecommuters do not have to report in person each workweek to headquarters.

"Ultimately, we'd like to get to a point where people come in the office less frequently than once a week," said Deborah Cohn , deputy commissioner for trademark operations. "We'll be trying to get to a point where, if they live in North Carolina or Florida, they don't have to come in except on rare occasions."

Cohn said the PTO decided to sponsor the pilot program after hearing from employees who want to be able to move away from the Washington area for family or lifestyle reasons. "Telework is a fabulous retention tool," she said. "We want to keep them; they are good employees."

Cohn and Friedman said the pilot builds on a nearly 10-year-old trademark office program that permits attorneys to work from their homes. About 220 trademark lawyers, out of 265 who are eligible, are telecommuters. Trademark lawyers typically can apply to telecommute after they have worked at the agency more than two years and show they can successfully meet rigorous productivity standards.

Program rules require the telecommuters to live within 110 miles of the PTO -- a limitation Cohn said was designed for an era when the agency installed desktop computers in employees' homes and arranged for cable companies to provide Internet service.

Today, most trademark lawyers work on laptops, and changes in technology have made it easier for them to connect to agency networks from their homes. The advent of Internet-based telephone service also makes it less expensive for trademark lawyers to provide services to companies and others who do business with the agency.

The PTO is in the vanguard of the government's work-at-home movement. In addition to trademark lawyers, about 500 senior patent examiners are telecommuting in a program that began in February. Over time, it could grow to as many as 3,000 examiners.

Telecommuting has been increasing in the federal government since 2000, but only 7.7 percent of the federal workforce telecommuted in 2004, according to the government's most recent report. The participation rate jumped to 19 percent when measured by the number of jobs that agencies have declared suitable for telecommuting.

Cohn noted that the trademark office has some experience with long-distance telecommuters. The agency has permitted at-home work by an employee in Harrisburg, Pa., and one in Long Island, N.Y., she said. A number of agency telecommuters live in the Annapolis and Baltimore areas, she noted.

The pilot, Friedman said, shows the value of telecommuting, especially for agencies updating contingency plans for redeploying employees if federal offices are closed because of pandemics or terrorist attacks.

Office chatter indicates that some trademark lawyers are interested in moving to Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Delaware and Illinois, Friedman said.

"Our people are chomping at the bit," he said. "I'll be curious to see how many people apply, and curious to see where they move."