Two years after whistleblowers submitted tips to the Commerce Department Inspector General’s office, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is acknowledging extensive timekeeping fraud among its employees. Many employees have reported working more hours and achieving higher levels of production than they actually did in order to secure overtime pay and bonuses.

The Washington Post has the details:

For example, patent examiners are allowed to submit incomplete reviews in order to meet productivity deadlines that ensure their work will be rewarded with bonuses. But the work is not always completed, the officials told congressional investigators.

They also said they believe they have adequate tools to allow managers to make sure the examiners they supervise are working, primarily through e-mail and phone calls. The 32-page review had concluded that many managers feel they have little authority to oversee their employees’ work; examiners have a full day to respond to calls and are not required to log into the agency’s internal Web site, so their bosses do not know if they are at their desks at a given time…

More than 70 percent of the 80 managers interviewed told the internal review team that a “significant” number of examiners did not work for long periods, then rushed to get their reviews done at the end of each quarter. The supervisors were concerned that the practice negatively affected the quality of the work.

After the tips were received, USPTO assigned an internal team to investigate. The team produced a 32 page report detailing the abuse. However, the agency scrubbed the report before submitting it to the inspector general. According to the Washington Post, “top patent officials removed the most damaging revelations from the report, providing the agency’s inspector general with an account half the length and with many potentially embarrassing findings removed.”

The agency now claims that the issue is under control. Workers are required to log into the agency’s remote server while teleworking. Unlike many federal agencies, the USPTO is specifically authorized by the U.S. Constitution, but it still has a duty to spend money wisely.