I wonder how much of this was due the problem where paralegals had literally had nothing to do. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2014/07/31/f

I wonder how much of this was due the problem where paralegals had literally had nothing to do. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2014/07/31/federal-paralegals-had-no-work-so-they-surfed-the-internet/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2014/07/3... "The underworked paralegals did little as a backlog of appeals of patent examinations that many of them were hired to help process doubled from about 12,500 in fiscal 2009 to 25,300 last year. Soon after the appeals board brought on additional legal support staff to address a deluge of challenges to decisions by patent examiners, the Patent and Trademark Office imposed a hiring freeze that halted hires of judges needed to handle the appeals."