US Patent Office To Hire 500 New Examiners

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US Patent Office To Hire 500 New Examiners

Posted by Hemos on Monday October 29, 2001 @07:28AM from the get-them-in-there dept.

ddillman writes to us with a story from EEtimes that is reporting that the US Government, specifically the PTO, is hiring up to 500 electrical engineers to help assess the validity of new patent claims on technical gadgets. Good - and with the downturn in the high tech industry you can get them cheap.

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Cheap, eh? by dbolger · 2001-10-29 07:34 · Score: 3, Funny

Good - and with the downturn in the high tech industry you can get them cheap.
Ummmm, are you talking about the patents, the gadgets....or the examiners? ;)
1. Re:Cheap, eh? by mikeage · 2001-10-29 09:56 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Good - and with the downturn in the high tech industry you can get them cheap.
  Ummmm, are you talking about the patents, the gadgets....or the examiners? ;)
  
  Yes.
  
  --
  -- Is "Sig" copyrighted by www.sig.com?
Re:Gadgets not software by Tackhead · 2001-10-29 08:14 · Score: 3, Funny

> If you read the article, you'll see this only applies to telecommunications and electronic devices. No mention made about software or Internet technology. So no worries, folks, I'm sure we'll still have plenty of silly "one-click" patents to talk about here on /.
USPTO: Look, we need 500 new engineers for the USPTO, and we need 'em now.
Grunt:Why?
USPTO:Because we have so many frivolous patent applications coming in for crap like clicking on web sites and ways to keep cats amused that our current examiners can barely keep up with the load. You got any idea how tired a guy's arm gets slamming down that damn rubber stamp for eight hours a day, five days a week, 52 weeks a year?
Grunt:Ah, I get it. You want a different process for the types of companies that might have actual innovations, but what you really want to do is make sure idiot dot-coms with obvious applications of prior art also have a fair shake at approval!
USPTO:For great justice, approve every patent!