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No, actually, they patented this:

A computer-implemented method comprising:

receiving at a first server system information related to users of a social network site hosted on a second server system;

determining by the first server system a social network graph for at least a portion of the social network from the received information, the graph comprising a plurality of nodes connected by links, each node corresponding to a user that is registered with the social network and that has a profile page on the social network;

identifying first nodes from the plurality of nodes as including content associated with a particular subject of interest;

seeding the identified first nodes with first scores that indicate profile pages for the identified first nodes are positively identified as including content associated with the particular subject of interest;

determining second scores for second nodes of the plurality of nodes based on propagation of the first scores from the first nodes to the second nodes using the links of the social network graph, where:

          each of the determined second scores corresponding to a second node indicates a likelihood that a profile page for the second node contains content associated with the particular subject of interest,
          a particular second score for a particular second node is determined based on a combination of scores for neighboring nodes that are connected to the particular second node by one or more of the links, and
          a particular profile page that is associated with the particular second node is determined to have at least a threshold likelihood of containing content that is associated with the particular subject of interest when at least a portion of the scores for the neighboring nodes exceed a threshold score; and

providing by the first server system the determined second scores for the second nodes.

If you're dissatisfied with that, put your money where your mouth is, and join us. Currently, the available listings require someone with an engineering Ph.D. or equivalent industry experience, but we will probably have openings for people with 4-year engineering degrees soon.

Caveat and mea culpa: I just checked the website at http://www.usptocareers.gov/ , and it turns out that the job vacancies are currently closed. Probably something to do with Congress still not passing a real budget, and the USPTO doesn't want to have people relocate to NOVA if the government is just going to shut down immediately afterwards. Hiring will undoubtedly start again once the budget situation is resolved, especially if Congress also passes the patent reform bill that would give the USPTO fee-setting authority and access to all the collected fees.

The part time program is extremely limited in scope. Also, you have to relocate so you can attend the training academy and interact with primary and supervisory examiners while you're still a junior examiner.

Starting pay for examiners depends on your incoming education or experience. People fresh out of college with a Bachelor's will generally get paid at GS-5 at a high in-grade step, and if you have a Master's or other qualifying job experience, you could come in at a high GS-7 or GS-9. Top end for primary examiners is GS-14, achievable in 4 to 6 years. After you've been there for a long time, this puts you close to the statutory salary cap. In any case, sticking around long enough will put you into six figures.

Translation into actual numbers:

http://www.usptocareers.gov/Pages/Misc/SalaryRates.aspx

Benefits are extremely good. In addition to the standard benefits that all federal employees get (great health care, life insurance, pension, 401(k) equivalent with 5% matching, and 4/6/8 hours of paid annual and sick leave per biweek at 0/3/15 years of service), the USPTO has the federal government's flagship telework program which allows qualifying examiners (GS-12, fully successful rating, and having passed the certification exam (which is similar to the patent bar exam but shorter)) to work from home. Before that, there is a very flexible flextime schedule that comes close to letting you arrive and leave as you please, as long as you get in your 80 hours per biweek.

There are downsides, of course. One, it removes you from true engineering such that if you stay long enough, you'd better be interested enough in patent law to make a career out of it. Two, your work is metered based on a production quota, and if you have trouble meeting your quota, it can be stressful. Three, the work itself can be mind-numbing, as in many tech areas you'll be examining applications drafted with a tenuous grasp on the English language, and claim language is often intentionally vague.

And one thing to keep in mind is that you can't really make as big a difference as I let on earlier. You can do a superb job searching for prior art and making solid rejections, but ultimately, if you can't come up with a legally sound rationale for rejecting the claims, you have to allow the application. The USPTO is bound by the law, and if you try to make up your own reasoning for rejecting a claim without case law to back it up, you really just end up making more work for yourself. And if you spend too much time searching and searching for things that are extremely obscure in the prior art, you won't make production.

Caveat and mea culpa: I just checked the website at http://www.usptocareers.gov/ , and it turns out that the job vacancies are currently closed. Probably something to do with Congress still not passing a real budget, and the USPTO doesn't want to have people relocate to NOVA if the government is just going to shut down immediately afterwards. Hiring will undoubtedly start again once the budget situation is resolved, especially if Congress also passes the patent reform bill that would give the USPTO fee-setting authority and access to all the collected fees.

The part time program is extremely limited in scope. Also, you have to relocate so you can attend the training academy and interact with primary and supervisory examiners while you're still a junior examiner.

Starting pay for examiners depends on your incoming education or experience. People fresh out of college with a Bachelor's will generally get paid at GS-5 at a high in-grade step, and if you have a Master's or other qualifying job experience, you could come in at a high GS-7 or GS-9. Top end for primary examiners is GS-14, achievable in 4 to 6 years. After you've been there for a long time, this puts you close to the statutory salary cap. In any case, sticking around long enough will put you into six figures.

Translation into actual numbers:

http://www.usptocareers.gov/Pages/Misc/SalaryRates.aspx

Benefits are extremely good. In addition to the standard benefits that all federal employees get (great health care, life insurance, pension, 401(k) equivalent with 5% matching, and 4/6/8 hours of paid annual and sick leave per biweek at 0/3/15 years of service), the USPTO has the federal government's flagship telework program which allows qualifying examiners (GS-12, fully successful rating, and having passed the certification exam (which is similar to the patent bar exam but shorter)) to work from home. Before that, there is a very flexible flextime schedule that comes close to letting you arrive and leave as you please, as long as you get in your 80 hours per biweek.

There are downsides, of course. One, it removes you from true engineering such that if you stay long enough, you'd better be interested enough in patent law to make a career out of it. Two, your work is metered based on a production quota, and if you have trouble meeting your quota, it can be stressful. Three, the work itself can be mind-numbing, as in many tech areas you'll be examining applications drafted with a tenuous grasp on the English language, and claim language is often intentionally vague.

And one thing to keep in mind is that you can't really make as big a difference as I let on earlier. You can do a superb job searching for prior art and making solid rejections, but ultimately, if you can't come up with a legally sound rationale for rejecting the claims, you have to allow the application. The USPTO is bound by the law, and if you try to make up your own reasoning for rejecting a claim without case law to back it up, you really just end up making more work for yourself. And if you spend too much time searching and searching for things that are extremely obscure in the prior art, you won't make production.

FFS, someone should take a hatchet to the US PTO. Don't they need to reduce the budget or something?

The USPTO is entirely fee-funded. Your tax dollars don't pay the examiners' salaries.

On a side note, if you do know something about history and technology, and you'd like to put your money where your mouth is and improve the quality of patent examination, the USPTO is currently hiring qualified individuals with expertise in electrical, computer, and biomedical engineering. US citizenship required. In addition to standard federal benefits and a salary that can reach $100k in about three years, the USPTO has the federal government's flagship telework program, which allows you to work from home, anywhere in the country, once you meet certain qualifications.

See http://usptocareers.gov/ for more info.

Starting salaries at the PTO are in the $52k to $71k range, with recruitment/retention bonuses dependent upon your field of expertise.

Also, promotions come pretty fast at the PTO. If you have sufficient production, you can get promoted at six months for an increase of two pay grades, for example. Anybody who stays a few years should be able to reach GS-13, which pays a minimum of $91k, and most people who make a career out of it will reach GS-14 or GS-15, which puts them into six digits.

Look here if you're interested in job security, good pay, and government benefits. Just be warned that it is a production environment, and they do let people go for not meeting their quotas.

Actually, that was as of September last year.

In December, there was a 7% pay increase across the GS scales. In January there was another 1.8%.

Don't forget the 4 year recruitment bonuses between $35,000 and $40,000.

Take a look at:

http://popa.org/txt/salary2007.txt (up-to-date salary info)
http://usptocareers.gov/benefits.asp (stale salary, but up-to-date recruitment bonus info)

They often do better than entry-level engineers...

Your information is not correct for the area of study of the VZ patent.

GS-5 gets $49K base (and 7,500 each year, for four years as a "retention incentive")
GS-7 gets $62K base (and 8,700 each year, for same reason)
GS-9 gets $68K base (and 9,900 each year, for same reason)

source: http://usptocareers.gov/benefits.asp

a BS with poor grades (or by choice) fetches you a GS-5. Good grades with BS a GS-7. Grad degree a GS-9.

That said, the job blows and isn't worth the $$$.

A patent examiner is GS-5 $38K job to start

http://usptocareers.gov/jobsearch.asp

Key requirements (redux):

- US Citizenship
- Ability to travel
- BA or BS from a community college accredited by ABET _or_ 2nd year coursework in 5 of 7 areas: physics, chemistry, architecture, computer science, mathematics, hydrology, or geology
- Registered as a professional engineer by a state, DC, Guam, or Puerto Rico
- Pass a written test for "Engineer In Training" or professional registration test
- 60 semester hours of courses in basic sciences/physics/math/engineering

So you've got to really want to be a patent examiner, be willing to live with a salary far below what you'd get in private industry with the same paper qualifications.

And then you get to do the scut work for a couple of years.

If you want to have your pay grade go up, you need time in grade and even more qualifications.

So it's pretty much the same deal that entry level teachers get, only you don't get the summer off.

-- Terry

http://usptocareers.gov/

Incorrect. The examining corps is divided into different sections, based on different technologies. Examiners must have a decent background in a particular area of science to get hired. They're not rocket scientists, but given federal government salaries, the government can't hire rocket scientists (well, you know, outside of NASA.)

Each examiner typically examines only a part of a particular field of technology. That way, the office can route all similar technologies to the same small cluster of examiners. This is only commonsense efficiency: the examiners are already familiar with the specific technology, and don't have to spend 100 hours reading up on it before starting examination.

I suspect that patent examiners are generally basically lawyers. Perhaps they might be somewhat knowledgeable in some technical field. But the more they know about law, the more likely that their knowledge of the technical field is, at best, quite shallow.

Completely incorrect. Check out the requirements for getting hired as an examiner. Applicants must have a degree in a field of science. Law degree not required, or even "a plus."

Consider what examiners do all day: they read technical articles while trying to contest a patent application. They don't read law. The only law they know is what's in the compendious Manual of Patent Examining Procedure. So they're apt to be much better at science than law - which, arguably, is how it should be.

Finally, consider that the USPTO's salaries aren't conducive to paying back law school student loans.

- David Stein