Myself, I passed the exams in 1992 and other than self-educating along the way, I have had no impetus to continue to learn what is going on with the law or what have you.
It is such an important right that you get in these patents, and you need to have someone who understands what they are doing to get it for you. It is a very complex area. The benefit is that there will be a plan of continuing education to allow these people to make sure that their credentials are up to date.
For a large company, it's not as much of an issue. I deal with agents and others within firms from time to time, but for smaller companies that are going to any hole in the wall to get this done, you've got to question whether those people's credentials are up to date. Based on the people I deal with, I think the tendency is for them to be up to date, but it's not clear that it's across the board and uniform. I think that's very important.