Patent Office Union Files Suit Against Trump Administration
On August 28, the White House issued an executive order which stripped collective-bargaining rights at several agencies, including the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, instantly reshaping labor relations for thousands of patent examiners. The executive order premises the change on “intelligence, counterintelligence, investigative, or national security” concerns. Within 48 hours, government agency communications indicated that, while POPA – the Patent Office Professional Association – can no longer represent Patent Office employees, existing telework practices would remain unchanged for now. For patent examiners and the patent attorneys and agents who work with them, the takeaway is immediate operational continuity paired with a sudden vacuum in formal representation, thereby creating uncertainty about the future.
POPA has now filed suit, arguing the order is retaliatory and that the administration’s fact sheet offers “spurious” reasons for sweeping the patents corps into a national-security-based carve-out. The complaint frames the move as punishment for the union’s prior opposition to administration policies and seeks injunctive relief to restore representation. This is not an abstract fight over procedure: POPA is signaling that examiner voice at the bargaining table is essential to quality, timeliness, and morale at the Patent Office, and that these are issues that directly affect stakeholders across the patent system.
POPA’s action lands alongside parallel litigation from other Commerce Department unions, including the National Treasury Employees Union, which filed its own case targeting the order’s impact at USPTO. USPTO leadership, for its part, has tried to tamp down fears of sweeping operational changes, but the loss of formal bargaining channels introduces real uncertainty around future policy shifts.