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."

Comments

Filing a patent...

[matchlight]

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.

Re:Filing a patent...

[Frisky070802]

requires the filee (sic) to do proper research.

Perhaps this depends on your definition of "proper research". You have to disclose the truth, and the best way to do whatever you're inventing. But you aren't legally obliged to find out if it's the best way, AFAIK.

Several years ago when I started filing patents, I thought a full prior art search was an abligation of the filer. But my impression in more recent years that the filer is obliged to disclose relevant prior art but not to find all possible prior art that he or she didn't already know about. This is left to the poor PTO examiners we just read about, and explains why so much prior art is missed.

In fact, I once got mail from someone at a Large Software Company who said that if others on a mailing list were going to discuss intellectual property (pending patent applications), he didn't even want to see it, so that he could honestly say he was unaware of it.

Alternative is PERPETUAL trade secrets

[tepples]

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?

Re:Open Patents

[Carl Oppedahl]

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.

Re:That old chestnut again

[Vainglorious Coward]

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.

The newer practice of advertising direct to consumers may also benefit consumers by advising them of choices their doctors may not be paying attention to.

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.