In the past, I was a patent examiner at the USPTO. Patent examiners have their own problematic performance metrics. In Oct. 2020, the metrics went through a big

In the past, I was a patent examiner at the USPTO. Patent examiners have their own problematic performance metrics. In Oct. 2020, the metrics went through a big change that made them a lot more complex. I suspect that part of the motivation was to make the system more opaque so that it'd be harder to game. But in practice I think it added just as many if not more ways to game the system. I quickly figured out that under the new system, you could increase the amount of time you get for a particular patent application through a particular reclassification procedure called a C* (pronounced C-star) challenge. I'm surely not the only one who figured that out. The reason the C* challenge exists is to reclassify a patent so that it can be transferred to a more qualified examiner. But if it's not transferred then the amount of time you get can be changed. That's not necessarily nefarious as many applications have the wrong classification and would give you a lot less time than if they had the right classification. But examiners aren't incentivized to switch an application to the right classification. They're incentivized to change the classification so that the application gets transferred or change the classification so that they get more time. In the latter case I'd intentionally avoid adding (or even delete) any classifications that would reduce the amount of time I got. I don't suspect the long-term dynamics of this system are what USPTO management intends.