Slashdot Mirror
A Day in the Life of a Patent Examiner
ahdkd writes "Forbes has an older article which describes the world of patent examining: Search 500,000 Documents, Review 160,000 Pages In 20 Hours, And Then Do It All Over Again. Might help people understand the USPTO and patents in general a little better."
requires the filee to do proper research. The fact that this position exists does not mean you can get an idea, file it and get it approved and it be legit. This person is only there as a last attempt at trying to weed out the duplicates.
Given the increase in complexity for these filings, doing your own research appears to be even more important that ever. I've gone through the process with mixed success. Even when proper research is done by the person filing and the patent office, you can still miss something.
The USPTO has a search engine. The front page is at http://www.uspto.gov/patft/index.html. It has a full-text search going back to 1976, and you can (apparently) see scanned images of documents all the way back to 1790.
Just another wannabe fantasy novelist...
At least, it's hard to see what the society at large can gain from [a monopoly].
The goal of the U.S. patent system, stated in the Constitution, is "to promote the progress of science and useful arts." The rents earned from selling a patented product provides an alternative to NDAs, which may be enough of an incentive not to make the NDAs perpetual. In addition, public safety considerations demand the disclosure of the contents of some products such as drugs, and other than through monopoly rents, how can inventors afford to pay the up-front cost of getting a new health product past regulators?
Indeed most US patent applications are published 18 months after the filing date, for precisely this purpose. You can see some examples on my web page. Members of the public are then free to send prior art to the Examiner.
Many patent offices around the world, including the European Patent Office, do the same thing.
From my interpretation of the below, I'd say definitely yes, you're violating the patent. Especially if you used the patent application itself to develop it.
From http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/doc/general/
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
And my argument is you have no clue.
They are an industry. It costs real money to do research. Huge amounts of it. I suppose you think they should just spend on good things until they are bankrupt, at which point there would be no more drugs for anyone.
The only good weather is bad weather.
I work as a patent examiner. We work on a quota system, meaning we have a certain number of hours allocated towards each case, it is totally dependant on each technology as to how long you have allocated towards each case, but on average it is about 20 hours, that is 20 hours to read the case, search the case, and write the case, and then respond and subsequently preform any additional required search after an attorney ammends the case. That is not enough time to give an exhaustive search, but after a certain period, examiners are familiar with what is patentable. More often that not something may be out there, but if the attorney claims it specific enough, it must be granted.
Examiners can't just allow a case just because they feel like it, they have to write a reasoned argument why it is not ovbious to combine, or why the closest art that they can find to the applicants invention is different, it is called "reasons for allowance".
There is a patent examiners union, and if you go by the newsletters is filled with whiners.
www.popa.gov
however, there are legitimate complaints.
the patent office is one of the few government agencies in which it is relatively easy to get fired from because you are on a quota, and there is a quality system. Attrition is very high at the patent office, most people can not cope with production. However, most patent applications are processed by experienced examiners, that is, the higher your gs grade, the more patent applications one must process. Examiners are overworked compared to our counterparts at the EPO and JPO(they are given signifigantly more examination time), and this is an ongoing process being rectified. Additionally a large portion of the fee's recieved by the patent office is diverted to the general treasury (despite a large fee increase), if the USPTO received all of that ammount, more examiners could be highered, and more time could be alloted per application.
most slashdot whiners have no clue at all how the examination process works (we have to determine if the invention was ovbious at the time of invention, to do otherwise is hindsight and is legally impermissiable), or the prior art that they do find, really does not meet the claim limitations. Remember, patent examiners act as both engineers as well as a judical function to determine the meetes and bounds of an invention.
primarily, we search our existing database of patents and patent applications, but IEEE databases, google, usenet, etc may be searched, pretty much anything out there which is published (i personally have used video game screenshots). It is exceptionally rare to grant a patent application the first time it crosses ones desk, but usually it takes 2-6 ammendments, or continuations before it is granted.
read popa (the patent examiners union) to get a better insight as to how the examination process works.
as for striking, examiners are prohibited from doing so. I remember signing paperwork to that effect.
Regardless of what the article says ...
Article says: 2 years between submission & issuance of the patent
My experience: 4 years for Architecture & Software claims, assuming you don't appeal (that adds 3 yrs).
Artcile says: $2,000 per applicaiton filing + atttorney fees
My Experience: $12,000 per application filing (w/ attorney fees) plus $5,000 for each response to a PTO action. Assume $25,000 for each application, and then you pay maintance fees to the PTO.
Nicely dodging my point that it's specious to argue that pharmcos need special protection because of the R&D costs, when in fact they are not risking huge amounts of money upfront. In fact they are trifling amounts, compared to other spending. See, for example, the figures in the report produced by Families USA which shows that Merck spent 6% of revenues on R&D, but spent 15% on marketing. The figures for Pfizer are 15% and 39%. The fact is that the pharmcos are one of the most powerful lobby groups in Washington and get lots of, ahem, "special consideration" that I don't think they deserve.
Are you for real?!? I guess, given your comments, you or your dad must work for a pharmco, but even so, pretending that dtca benefits consumers is simply risible.
My next sig will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush