Does the USPTO (United States Patent and Trademark Office -
www.uspto.gov ) hire "patent agents" (those who passed the USPTO exam)
or does it hire only "patent examiners" (those who did not take or did
not pass the exam)? If the USPTO does hire "patent agents", what is
the pay grade (e.g. GS-11, GS-13, etc...) ? Thank you very much.

Hi, 

After calling around for a while and sitting on the phone I finally
got a hold of Anna at the PTO Employment and HR department (800)
786-9757, who had this to say on the matter. No, the USPTO doesn?t
hire the Title of Patent Agent, the title is Patent Examiner, though
they do hire Patent Agents as Examiners. The pay grades are the same
whether or not you were a Patent Agent before you are hired as an
Examiner.

There is also a Title of Patent Attorney, but these are different in
that they have passed a bar exam and are Attorneys.

Need more information on this question, you can use the Clarification
Request function or call the Office of Enrollment and Discipline at 
571-272-4097 and they can give you further details as well.

Thanks, 

Webadept-ga

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Clarification of Answer by webadept-ga on 18 Nov 2005 09:07 PST

Hi again, 

I'm sure you have this page link, but just in case, here is a list of
current job openings, which also shows the Pay Grade for each of the
openings as well.

http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/ahrpa/ohr/jobs/jobs.htm

thanks again, 

webadept-ga

Thank you very much! Excellent!