Judge Fleming has served as an Administrative Patent Judge since 1994 and is currently Chief Administrative Patent Judge of BPAI. He has extensive experience with ex parte appeals involving the electrical arts and interference proceedings. Judge Fleming started his career as an electrical engineer at Naval Facilities Engineering Command and then joined the U. S. Patent and Trademark Office as a patent examiner in 1981. He received an Examiner's Master rating in computer arts in 1984 and became a supervisory primary examiner in 1990 in the area of computer processing using artificial intelligence. Judge Fleming was awarded the Department of Commerce Gold Medal for his participation in the creation of the Examination Guidelines for Computer Related Inventions, which provided major improvement in examining quality and consistency.