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Patent Office Proposes Reform
leabre writes "The NY Times (subscription required) is running a story about how the Patent and trademark office is trying to reform itself. Among some of the reforms sought, is higher fees for the initial processing fee, higher fees for more than 20 claims, higher fees for the more work the examiners have to due (lower fees for less work and fewer claims), 2000 more examiners, and required continued relevance of the examiner in their field (certification and re-certification). My favorite quote "...Mr. Rogan says excessive claims not only slow patent processing but contribute to poor-quality patents." They are trying to crack down on abundant claims and too-technical jargon which they claim overworks the examiners, reduces the quality of the patent, and other things. Worth a read."
Higher fees are not a solution. They just raise the stakes, so companies will try even harder to win patents. Likewise, or contrastingly, the "little guy" who comes up with a legitimate invention is even less likely to be able to win a patent for it. These "reforms" will serve only to line the bureaucrats' pockets with the blood of the independent inventor.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
A Method For Reforming A Patent Office
doh!
So, it'll be run like a dot com? When's the IPO?
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Ok, it's a big "IF", but if they spent the money on better prior art searches, perhaps it might improve the system. For example, in my experience with patent submission, the US patent office only appears to search for prior art in its own published patent database, while say, in Europe, the EPO seems to look a bit harder.
Of course, extending it to looking through well-known journals relating to the particular art would be even better, but just looking at foreign patent databases (relative to the USA) would be a start.
Notice how there is no mention of changing the process for "business process" patents, like the Bezos "One-Click" and now infamous "eBay" patents.
Raising the fees only help big corporations, which of course want to patent everything under the Sun, probablly including the Sun, just like BT's frivilous patent on "links".
There needs to be some sort of improvement in prior art review. How come a couple thousand of us /.ers can find prior art, but the USPTO can't even use Google?????
Patents we devised to be accesible to the small guy and were designed to help increase innovation. Now they are used as ways for big corporation to squash people from even thinking, and the DCMA only adds to that.
D.O.U.O.S.V.A.V.V.M.
The PTO makes no money. It is a government service organization. If you read the article, you'll notice that they are really tied up by the fact that many unwarranted patents are filed every year along with poorly written patent applications.
Speaking from personal experience (both going through to process and having known employees) they are completely overwhelmed by people who are applying for patents for things that already exist, and primarily by poorly written yet overwhelmingly complex patent applicatons.
I don't see how charging according to the amount of effort that they have to put in is going to hinder the process. Most large organizations are going to ultimately be the ones paying the most. If an individual wishes to file for a patent, they hold workshops all the time on how to get through effieciently, and ultimately this will mean that you get to pay the least.
All in all, I think they need some reform, and I really hope this helps. They do provide a good service, when things are working.
--- I'll have a Bloody Mary, a Steak Sandwich and a uh Steak Sandwich.
But he's not going far enough. Simply charging more for more patent filings isn't going to stop the companies that exist to do nothing other than file patents. They'll just factor it into their business models and pass the costs on to licencees.
What the PTO needs to do is to charge punitive fees when they reject patents. Yes, you heard me. Currently, they get their income from granting patents, so there's absolutely no, zero, zilch, nada incentive to reject, and so there's no disincentive to file.
Let's turn that on its head. Patents should be granted grudgingly. Examiners should be looking for excuses to reject them.
I'd quite seriously propose a deposit of $10,000 for each patent filing, most of which would be refundable on granting. I want filers to be sure that they're actually filing genuine inventions, and I want the PTO examiner (and/or subcontractor) to be eyeing that $10,000 as her reward for finding prior art that you've missed or "forgotten" to mention.
If $10,000 looks like a lot, then consider how many genuinely novel inventions you're likely to have during your working life, and compare that to the number of cars you might buy over that same period. If you still think that's too much for basement inventors, then consider that they can always sell their idea to one of the patent swallowing companies, and we can go back to business as usual.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
And exactly how would all this have prevented the sideways swinging patent #6368227? How much expertise and certification to you need to spot the prior art in THAT one?
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
The Patent & Trademark Office seems to have spent most of its time over the past decade trying to reform itself. With "customer" satisfaction surveys running in the 50 - 60% range, they know they have a problem.
For example, about a year back, they came out with software for electronic submission. Codes things in XML. Nice concept, but the software was virtually unusable. God knows how much money they spent on that. Their flawed electronic search system is another example of ineffective, grossly expensive automation projects.
Another very basic issue is that they seem to lose half the papers people send to them, and then commit significant resources to reviewing and ruling on the proof that the submitter actually sent the papers. This is routine. The most important part of any submission to their office, regretably, is the proof of mailing.
Then there's the touchy issue of quality. Some of the people who work there are highly competent and dedicated. But a lot of them are really inexperienced. Adding 2000 more will just make this worse.
The commissioners (who have been rotating with considerable frequency of late) always say they want to run the office "like a business." Well guess what? It ain't a "business" and it never will be.
They keep talking about their mission to serve "customers," i.e. the people who file patent applications. This is infuriating. They seem totally to forget that the key part of their mission to to represent the PUBLIC. At one point, a past commissioner actually wanted to privatize the office (and make himself the CEO). They should start thinking about what serving the public actually means, and just lose the part about trying to be a "business." At this point, that would be the most useful "reform," in my opinion.
WRONG, you didnt read the whole thing didin't you!
There would be a major change in the examination process. Examiners would no longer search for prior art, it would all be submitted by the applicant and the search would be preformed by a private search firm. The examiner then would then determine patentablility via that search.
There are several problems with this:
1. Patent examiners know what prior art is out there because they deal solely in a specific technology area (and are intimatly familiar with those sets of patents of record). What happens if the examiner knows of prior art not listed by the applicant? (This has yet to be addressed.)
2. There is a conflict of interest by the private search firm. They are being paid to find prior art that the applicant really doesn't want them to find.
3. You are removing a function of government by eliminating searching.
for more info, http://www.popa.org
thats the examiners union, im not a member by the way.
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
"You're right, though, I do want to abolish the patent system completely. I think this is sort of like "those who can afford to pollute/restrict the intellectual sphere with patents can do it". A classical case of rich-gets-richer."
I don't know. I have met a number of people who could only be called inventors. Were it not for the patent system they would not be making anything because those with money and resources could easily exploit their idea.
"Now, left-slanted as I may be, I don't have anything against people making it by working hard. What I am opposed is "it takes money to make money"-situations. The old Samuel-Vimes-cheap-boot-dilemma."
While I do agree with the general premise of "the more you have, the easier it is to hold on to it" I don't think patenets can really be applied in such a manner.
True, I would agree to such a thing if the price for reviewing patents was at such a level as to put more of a strain on those with less, but I'm not really sure it is (don't get me wrong, I honestly haven't looked into how much the proposed changes will be).
But I do belive that the PO is more likely to try to charge more to the big compaines. Those who put in a 100 applications a day, many of which are the same kind of application with just a few changed details.
So in a sense they're trying to raise the playing field rather than raise the bar (again, though I should note this is just mere conjecture on my part. I could be quite wrong.)
" Patents are harmful in another way as well -- they're about restrictions and enmity, not cooperation. "
But they're protective too. For example, if I invent the supersnooper and it because really popular, then I'm protected from big boys comming over and taking my tosh.
As for my position on Intellectual "Property", there's no such thing. I go back and forth on trademarks (long story), I want to see copyrights and trade secrets totally revised, and I want patents to go away.
I don't know.. Like I said I think that copyrights protect us to a degree. However I do belive that they should be more flexiable. Goverment and Public organizations should be able to make use out of them, and corperations shouldn't be able to sit on patents for years on end until someone else comes up with the idea too and figures a good way to make money with it.
What Rogan does not explain is why the fees for claims should increase exponentially with the number of fees. If your linear relationship is off, reset the slope dammit! It isn't right to punish an inventor because his invention is complicated.
Fees should probably be higher, the USPTO should be allowed to keep all its fee income and pay the examiners accordingly or supplement the research resources the examiners have. The fee probably should be higher for longer patent applications. (Yes, it is the same fee for 10 pages of description and 1000 pages of description now.)
Patents are granted unless the PTO can find a reason not to. ("A person shall be entitled to a patent unless --" 35 U.S.C. 102) Shorting the examiners of time and resources necessarily leads to bad patents getting out.
Part of the reason that patent application fees are low is that the U.S. Patent system is a "winners pay" system. After the patent is allowed you still have to pay a publication fee, an issue fee, and then maintenance fees at 3, 7, and 11 years. That way, small inventors can take their shot but not bear the full cost unless they get a patent.
What Rogan won't confront, is that the darn points system, which basically is a system where you require the hamsters to run a little faster each year, is not the right management tool (at least in a vacuum). The only thing that supplements it now are "customer satisfaction surveys". Mind you, having the USPTO be polite and responsive is ok, but please notice that QUALITY OF ISSUED PATENTS just does not enter the picture. Please, FIX THE METRICS. If it takes money, which is must, then raise fees. Don't just raise fees to hand money over to Congress though.
You may have some bizarre definition of "not making money". From a 4/01 News.com article:
In other words, the USPTO takes in more money than it spends. The extra goes to other government programs. Now maybe you don't call it "making money", but that's exactly what it is. And the top-level poster is correct that the patent office could be spending more of its revenues checking applications.