US Patent Office To Hire 500 New Examiners

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.

Comments

Open Source People : Apply!

[Jeppe Salvesen]

This is a good chance to inject some open source talent into an important public body. It really sounds like they could use some talent, and most importantly a broader knowledge base!

That's all fine and good, but...

[wonder]

call me a cynic if you will, but hiring more people to do a job doesn't necessarily mean they'll do it well. Sure, they're engineers with experience and we all might assume that they'll have a bit more insight into what should and shouldn't be legitimate claims. However, they're still going to be under someone who's giving out the directions on how things are supposed to be done, and that someone is probably well entrenched in the thinking that's become the object of many a laugh on these message boards. Strange how independent thought tends to wither and dry up after enough time has passed in almost any job. Here's hoping..

Gadgets not software

[M_Talon]

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 /.

they've been hiring for a while now

[hamburger lady]

when i joined the PTO 3 years ago, the boss-man was all 'yeah, we need a lot of people now'. he's been saying that every month since.

the job is not at all difficult. but don't think you can change the system somehow, i spend most of my time trying to untangle myself from the beaurocracy that is the patent office.

pays well tho.

They need to change the revenue model.

[IGnatius T Foobar]

The real problem with the PTO is that they make money when a patent is awarded. Therefore they are motivated to award as many patents as possible. This needs to change before the "patent everything" mindset will stop getting its way every time.

Re:They need to change the revenue model.

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh what are you talking about? I work at the PTO and really don't understand your comment. Our money comes from applications and renewals, not from when a patent is approved.

If there is a problem at the PTO it is too few examiners and a production quota system that values speed over quality.

Circuit patents == software patents?

[re-geeked]

Here are questions that jump in to my mind on reading this:

Is there a problem with patenting of electronic circuit designs that's similar to the familiar problems of patenting algorithms, processes, and genetic materials?

Namely, are there too many patents for devices that don't have proven, unique, new, and specific utility, and that don't necessarily require inventive insight?

Are we giving "same as the last design, just add this component" electrical device patents?

Is this how IBM, Motorola, and Intel compile such impressive numbers of patents granted?

It certainly seems like this could be the case. Seriously, I'm curious about info/opinions on this.

New Hires vs. Policy

[HiThere]

New hires don't set policy. The policy appears to be to grant as many patents as feasible. So more new hires will just let them grant more patents quickly.

I may misunderstand this, but my understanding is that the funding for the patent office is somewhat dependant on the number of patents granted. Possibly that was the performance evaluation of the patent examiner. I'm sure that many of the people there try to do the best job feasible under the circumstances. But with those circumstances...

Re:New Hires vs. Policy

[jmauro]

The patent's office funding doesn't come from granting as many patents as possible, but other orginizations who are more politically backed funding comes from the patent office granting more patents. The sad part of it is that even if the patent office gets more income from the patenting process they can't hire more people or make other decisions based on that process because Congress takes away all of their surplus if they are over the budgetted amount. It's an aweful cycle that no one seems to be able to break.

Speeding up the Output

[KarmaBlackballed]

500 more examiners just means we will see more patents coming out of the mill, not better ones.

The problem we face is not that we do not have enough examiner staff to properly consider submissions. Rather, the fundamental problem is that we give monopoly rights to software at all.

Money drowns out common sense any day.