The USPTO employees who decide whether a patent application should be allowed are the patent examiners. Ideally, a patent examiner with signatory authority decides whether a patent examiner's work on an office action is adequate and, if and only if so, signs the office action. Patent examiners do not benefit at all from your listed fees.
However, certain high-level patent examiners who work in what used to be called "Quality Assurance" check patent examiners' office actions and sometimes send them back to the examiners. But, even these high-level examiners are unlikely to be motivated to increase your above-listed fees because they look bad when the quality of patents goes bad.
But, as I suggest in another comment, the authoritarian culture at the USPTO grants far too much discretion to Supervisory Patent Examiners (SPEs), who know they can easily cheat the system with impunity.
I used to work as a patent examiner for the USPTO (until late 2004), and I observed a practice, by my SPE, which is likely to result in plenty of "crap patents."
My SPE's personality repelled all the examiners with signatory authority from his art unit. He needed someone to help him in deciding whether examiners' office actions should be signed. He had an examiner ("pet examiner"), who was his friend, but who had no signatory authority at all, place stickies on the file wrappers of those the pet examiner decides should be signed. The stickies said, "[first name of SPE], OK to sign. [signature of pet examiner]." The pet examiner was awarded "other time" as a "trainer" or something similar.
I photocopied several of the file wrappers with the stickies, and I still have them. At one point, I sent an email, concerning this observation, to my Tech Center Director and cc'd a copy to my SPE. Neither of these USPTO managers responded, but the stickies no longer appeared on the outsides of the file wrappers. I'm sure the practice continued.
One time, before I had discovered the stickies, while I was in his office, he said to me, "Joe, how would you like to be a trainer?" I responded, "But, to be a trainer, don't you have to have signatory authority?" He replied, "Uhhh, ummm, yeah, yeah." I was puzzled about why he had asked me the question.
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The USPTO employees who decide whether a patent application should be allowed are the patent examiners. Ideally, a patent examiner with signatory authority decides whether a patent examiner's work on an office action is adequate and, if and only if so, signs the office action. Patent examiners do not benefit at all from your listed fees.
However, certain high-level patent examiners who work in what used to be called "Quality Assurance" check patent examiners' office actions and sometimes send them back to the examiners. But, even these high-level examiners are unlikely to be motivated to increase your above-listed fees because they look bad when the quality of patents goes bad.
But, as I suggest in another comment, the authoritarian culture at the USPTO grants far too much discretion to Supervisory Patent Examiners (SPEs), who know they can easily cheat the system with impunity.
My SPE bypassed the signatory authority requirement.
I used to work as a patent examiner for the USPTO (until late 2004), and I observed a practice, by my SPE, which is likely to result in plenty of "crap patents."
My SPE's personality repelled all the examiners with signatory authority from his art unit. He needed someone to help him in deciding whether examiners' office actions should be signed. He had an examiner ("pet examiner"), who was his friend, but who had no signatory authority at all, place stickies on the file wrappers of those the pet examiner decides should be signed. The stickies said, "[first name of SPE], OK to sign. [signature of pet examiner]." The pet examiner was awarded "other time" as a "trainer" or something similar.
I photocopied several of the file wrappers with the stickies, and I still have them. At one point, I sent an email, concerning this observation, to my Tech Center Director and cc'd a copy to my SPE. Neither of these USPTO managers responded, but the stickies no longer appeared on the outsides of the file wrappers. I'm sure the practice continued.
One time, before I had discovered the stickies, while I was in his office, he said to me, "Joe, how would you like to be a trainer?" I responded, "But, to be a trainer, don't you have to have signatory authority?" He replied, "Uhhh, ummm, yeah, yeah." I was puzzled about why he had asked me the question.
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by Joe L.
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