I don't think that's right. More on the patent in question.
Can you describe a typical day at your firm? How might this differ from other organizations?
After the first year of training, examiners are on a production quota system in which, depending on grade level and complexity of the technology examined, they are given a certain amount of time to do an average application.
The initial patent application examination procedure generally consists of:
\ufffd reviewing the description of the invention to gain an understanding of what the invention is,
\ufffd checking the application for compliance with formalities,
\ufffd reading the claims so as to ascertain the scope of protection desired by applicant,
\ufffd conducting a search of the relevant documents such as U.S. and foreign patents and other published references such as textbooks, that either show the claimed invention wholly or in part, or that show the general state of the art, and
\ufffd writing an official paper expressing the PTO\ufffds initial opinion on the patentability of the claimed invention.
Once the official paper has been mailed (generally to applicant\ufffds patent attorney), the applicant has a period of time to respond or else the application becomes abandoned. Upon receiving the applicant\ufffds response, the examiner has one or two months in which to review it and either repeat the original rejection, make a new rejection of the claims as being unpatentable, or else allowing the claims so that the application becomes a patent.
Depending on the examiner\ufffds experience, grade level and training, the above procedures are carried out with a varying degree of supervision. Senior examiner\ufffds work typically only receives cursory review, if any, as they have been delegated the authority to make final decisions on patentability.
They're rated on lack of errors, efficiency, etc., not on how many patents they grant.
Another view is [link|http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2005/05/05/DI2005050501046.html|here] - search for "patent" about 5/8 of the way down.
Also, [link|http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6,960,975.WKU.&OS=PN/6,960,975&RS=PN/6,960,975|the patent in question] isn't very long. It cites 5 earlier patents by others and doesn't say anything about perpetual motion. It may be bogus (I think it is), but it's not as obviously bogus as [link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=174233|some things I've heard about].
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.