Embattled USPTO Trademark Chief Deborah Cohn To Retire

I was one of the few people in the world that had the qualifications for the Patent Class 703 and met every stringent requirements put upon me by the USPTO management, including putting difficult and complex COPA patent cases in my docket, yet I was terminated, while these unqualified relatives of management were hired in a position they are not even qualified for.

By Bill Donahue

Law360, New York (September 08, 2014, 12:39 PM ET) -- Deborah Cohn, the chief trademark commissioner at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office who came under fire earlier this summer over allegations that she facilitated the hiring of a family member's fiance, will retire at the end of the year, a USPTO spokesman confirmed to Law360 on Monday.
Cohn, who's been with the agency since 1983 and took over as trademark commissioner in 2010, privately announced the move to colleagues on Monday, the spokesman said.

In July, a report from the U.S. Department of Commerce's Office of Inspector General said Cohn had violated federal laws that prohibited her from using her public office for private gain when she improperly intervened to ensure that her relative's live-in boyfriend and fiance was hired for a trademark attorney adviser position despite not even clearing an initial screening hurdle.

The USPTO would not comment on whether Cohn's retirement was related to the inspector general report, or provide any further details on her decision.

The OIG's report release in July said the investigation began after anonymous whistleblower sent a letter in April 2013 accusing Cohn of improperly using her position to ensure the applicant was hired.

The whistleblower further alleged that the applicant was not even among the most qualified candidates that had applied for the position and that his "primary qualifications [were] that he [was] engaged to Mrs. Cohn's [relative] and in need of a job," according to the report.

The report uncovered "several violations of law and lapses in judgment" by Cohn in connection with the hiring, including that she twice pushed the candidate's application forward after it had been rejected by her subordinates.

Cohn first instructed her charges to include the applicant on a list of about 500 potential interviewees derived from a list of the 732 initial applicants, even though he had already been eliminated from consideration, the OIG said.

Later, after her subordinates did not select the applicant to receive an offer, Cohn effectively created a new position specifically for the applicant and urged a hiring manager to bring him on board, according to the report.

Prior to the applicant's landing the job at the USPTO, the report found that Cohn had also used her agency email address to send notes to friends, such as intellectual property attorneys that argue cases before the agency, to help the applicant find work.

"We found that these actions at a minimum created an appearance that she was using her public office for these other private individuals' benefit, which therefore constituted a violation of [federal law]," the OIG report said.

The OIG chided Cohn for exhibiting poor judgment, saying that as senior manager in the federal government, she should have known about the federal laws regarding hiring practices and should have steered clear of any appearance of impropriety.

In addition to Cohn's conduct, the OIG's report found that similar impropriety in the hiring process "appeared to be commonplace in the trademark organization," where multiple USPTO employees displayed a "lack of understanding of the rules governing federal hiring."

--Additional reporting by Vin Gurrieri. Editing by Katherine Rautenberg.

http://www.law360.com/articles/575037/embattled-uspto-trademark-chief-deborah-cohn-to-retire