Commissioner deborah cohn honored for her leadership

Commissioner Deborah Cohn - Honored For Her Leadership Deborah Cohn has been the Commissioner for Trademarks at the United States Patent and Trademarks Office since the very last day of 2010. By the time she became Commissioner she had been with the USPTO for nearly thirty years. She joined the agency right out of law school, and has been there for her entire professional career.

One of her most notable achievements in the USPTO is the successful implementation of a teleworking program that allowed USPTO employees to work remotely via the Internet. The Internet tools for teleworking, also known as telecommuting, were already in place. But it took someone with vision and initiative to develop and launch a pilot program.

Any concerns that workers might not be as productive working from home were quickly dispelled. “When we started the program back in 1997 and in the years following, we closely measured and monitored the productivity of people who worked at home and compared it to what it was before they worked at home” Deborah Cohn Commissioner recalls today.

“We compared it to a control group in the office. We did a very involved study. And we found that productivity went up. There was no question about it. It was a clear win. The quality was the same, which makes sense to us.”

Now, USPTO employees are able to work remotely from anywhere in the continental United States. “Its spread across the country, with more people on the east coast,” Commissioner Deborah Cohn says. “Many of them like to go back to where their families are. There are all kinds of reasons for moving so there’s no particular area that people are gravitating toward.”

In recognizing the pioneering work of Commissioner Deborah Cohn, Representative Thomas M. Davis said that she demonstrated foresight, creativity and perseverance in making telework a reality. “Deborah Cohn pioneered the development of USPTO’s first telework program at a time when telework was far from the norm,” he told members of Congress, in presenting her with the Presidential Mark Award on the tenth anniversary of the program..

“Ms. Cohn not only convinced reluctant agency executives, she forged coalitions with managers, IT personnel, and the employee union to create an innovative, award-winning telework program at the USPTO...it is an honor for me to recognize Deborah Cohn...for her leadership in promoting government telework.”

Commissioner Deborah Cohn received her law degree from the George Mason University School of Law. She also earned a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from The American University in Washington, and is a member of the Virginia State bar. Deborah Cohn is retiring in January, 2015.