The obverse side (L) and never-before-seen reverse side of the Lutnick card (R)
"Perhaps nothing symbolizes the intellectual and philosophical decline of the USPTO so much as its decision to create an inventor trading card featuring Howard Lutnick."
If you are lucky, your office is nearby one of our exciting new "collaboration rooms" like the one featured below. If you don't know where yours is, listen for the soothing sound of brewing Keurig coffee and happy colleagues. If your local collaboration room is not ready yet, don't worry. We're spending lots of money to bring one of these to a location near you. If you are one of the lucky ones, then you may have already experienced the warm, brightly lit fluorescent space, with inviting round table and surplus, mismatched chairs. There, you and a colleague may have already enjoyed a cup of coffee (you supply the K cup, we supply the Keurig and tap water!) and collaborated over a challenging office action, understanding your latest PAP changes, or dreaming about what you would have done with your docket management award if it still existed. Like the fictional holodeck on the Starship Enterprise (TNG), the slick tile floors and bare, unadorned white walls are designed for you to imagine your own setting--perhaps a quiet beach or a sunny, fluorescent lit, grassy meadow.
But did you know that these rooms weren't conceived of here at the USPTO? They were a product of months of scouting by the Make-USPTO-Number-1-Place-To-Work-Again Task Force headed up by the Regina George of the 10th Floor. You haven't seen her lately because she has been canvassing the region finding similar collaboration spaces--those that are versatile, timeless, and cost-effective. In the process she rejected those extravagant new spaces brought to you by progressive thinkers attempting to coddle you into thinking that work was supposed to lazy and soft instead of challenging and rewarding. That kind of thinking didn't make Sparta great. Here are a few examples that we borrowed from and a few that we rejected:
Best collaboration spaces:
Worst collaboration spaces:
Can you guess some of the others?
