KAIPO hosted the first meeting for first year Examiners on November 10, 2021. This is a kickoff meeting for a series of discussions for first year Examiners. The goal of the discussions is to promote engagement between new Examiners and to help them complete the first year successfully. The KAIPO First Year Discussions are also aimed at helping to build community among the Examiners and to break down some of the isolation caused by the pandemic.
During the first discussion in the series, there was a brief presentation that shares general tips and lessons from recently retained Examiners regarding successfully getting through the first year, followed by a Q&A session. Examiners showed interests in discussing various future topics such as a fly-on-the-wall session (i.e., watching an experienced Examiner start work on a new case), obviousness, prior art searches, responding to Applicant arguments, interviews, etc. There will be additional, biweekly small group discussions, which will cover topics of interest to the participants. All discussions will be in a virtual setting using Microsoft Teams.