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A Day in the Life of a Patent Examiner

Posted by michael on from the turkey-day dept.

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."

50 of 225 comments (clear)

  1. yeah right... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You know whats a lot easier than reading all that stuff? Simply approving the application.. then a nice nap.

  2. Filing a patent... by matchlight · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:Filing a patent... by Frisky070802 · · Score: 3, Informative
      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.

      --
      Mencken had it right. So glad that's old news.
  3. Evidence that the system is a failure by dada21 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I believe this article is yet another nail in the coffin of the patent system. It is time to rethink the patent system. Economist Fritz Machlup has proven that patents do not entice corporations to develop new products; in fact, the "short-term advantage a company derives from developing a new product and being the first to put it on the market may be incentive enough."

    Patents offer a authoritarian power to destroy competition, increase prices, and skew the relationship between research and creation by scaring off new ideas developed on old ones.

    1. Re:Evidence that the system is a failure by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      3300 patent examininers to deal with 2M incoming requests a year? I'd wager the IRS has a higher investigation to filer ratio and the IRS less than 100 years old.

      I guess we know where our priorities are.

    2. Re:Evidence that the system is a failure by mesocyclone · · Score: 4, Interesting

      There are certainly exceptions to this rule. For example, the pharmaceutical industry, because of its huge upfront costs, often will not develop a perfectly useful drug unless it can patent it. The reason is that without patent protection, other companies will free-ride on the FDA approval process and other startup costs.

      Products which are high in intellectual content or up-front cost/risk and low in reproduction cost often need protection or they will not be developed.

      There is no doubt in my mind that the patent system, applied to software, is extremely wrong and has the potential to destroy the industry or put it into the hands of gigantic corporations who can use cross-licensing to avoid patent problems.

      But not every industry is software.

      As to an economist "proving" something... well, give me a break. An economist can throw light on things, and come up with good ideas, but the idea of them proving things is, in most cases, absurd.

      --

      The only good weather is bad weather.

    3. Re:Evidence that the system is a failure by Doctor7 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The pharmaceutical industry possibly deserves special treatment (patents or the equivalent) simply because safety regulations require them to divulge the contents of their products, and therefore they can't benefit from trade secrets. In industries where this is not the case, it's not so obvious that patents are necessary or desirable.

    4. Re:Evidence that the system is a failure by dada21 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      First, you are correct on the "proving" idea -- I will refrain from using the word "prove" along with "economist." I should have said "proved to me" instead.

      As for the pharmaceutical industry, it should be known at part of the high up-front cost is FDA regulation. I believe the FDA is unconstitutional, and could be better created as a free market Underwriter's Laboratory type corporation. Target won't sell a lamp unless its UL tested. Why would drugs be any different?

      If a company creates a drug, tests that drug, and brings it to market first, it would also be in its best interest to create contracts with distribution companies that they would not sell a competitors' version for a period of time. This is the best way to protect the interest of the discoverer of said drug.

      Making a drug is only the first step. Testing is very important. Target and Walgreens and CVS won't just sell every drug. Your doctor probably won't prescribe a drug unless they know it is safe. If the FDA was knocked out, and patents dissolved, the drug companies would still have many incentives to create new products -- even with the threat of competition more visible.

      What is the cost of creating a drug? It is the cost of discovery, the cost of development, the cost of testing, the cost of FDA approval, and the cost of advertising. I wonder how much the last two parts are compared to the first steps.

    5. Re:Evidence that the system is a failure by bug-eyed+monster · · Score: 4, Interesting

      It's quite misguided to say the patent system as a whole is no good. Patents work well in some situations but not others. You can't cite a couple of bad cases from the software industry and conculde that the patent system is broken altogether.

      E.g. pharmaceutical companies need to do a lot of research before creating new useful medicine. Research costs money and they can't make it back within just a couple of months of being first-to-market. They get a few years to control the market, make a profit, and move on. Another example, if you invent a better shovel, it'll be copied within a month easy, and there is no way you can make a profit from being first-to-market because people don't buy shovels every month. You need a patent of a few years to let you make some decent profit.

      Patents work well for some industries but not others. There is also the way patents are used. Dolby Labs made a great use of their invention in noise reduction system. Nobody boycotts Dolby Labs, in fact everybody welcomes them, even though their patent and licensing increased the price of audio-visual equipment.

      Dolby invented something, made it available to the public while making an honest profit and everybody's happy. Contrast that to the company who pops up with some vague patent and issues C&Ds or ridiculous invoices to the world, years after the public adoption of the patented system. We need to address and fix the latter stunts, not drop the entire patent system.

    6. Re:Evidence that the system is a failure by danila · · Score: 2, Interesting

      And the alternatives might be much better. Compulsory licensing coupled with compulsory investment reimbursement may work better than current patents.

      I spend $10 bn to develop a new drug and plan to sell 100 mln packages for $200 each. If you want to join the fun and sell your own improved version, pay me about $50-100 for each package you sell. Let's also limit the total amount of royalty payment and time period.

      --
      Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
    7. Re:Evidence that the system is a failure by mesocyclone · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Yes, without patents the problem of unpatentable drugs would continue, and in fact would get much, much worse. Basically, the pharmaceutical industry would be destroyed and no new drugs would come to market.

      The policy is a simple business decision involving weighing the costs against the profits, the latter being dramatically reduced by competition which does not have the same upfront costs.

      In other words, someone has to do the testing. Without the testing, the drug cannot (or should not) be sold. Whoever does the testing is the loser, because the anybody else can make the same drug and free-ride on the testing of the first company.

      Thus the best way to deal with non-patentable drugs is to have some other mechanism to prevent free-riders. Whether that is having the government assume the risk, or requiring the other sellers of the drug to pay royalties to the developer (i.e. something like patents but based on investment rather than originality), or something else.

      We are already dealing with a major free-rider problem. Many countries in the world have price-fixing in pharmaceuticals (Canada is a major example). Hence they par far less than their fair share for the cost of drugs developed for the American market. They are being subsidized by the Americans who pay a greater-than-full-price for the medication in order to subsidize these countries all over the world. Thus Europe and Canada and some other countries are, through government action, free-riding on the American consumer. Other countries cannot afford the drugs at full price, and the pharmaceutical companies will sell at lower prices because the price still exceeds their cost of production, which is far less than the total cost of developing, testing, and producing the drug.

      --

      The only good weather is bad weather.

    8. Re:Evidence that the system is a failure by file-exists-p · · Score: 2, Interesting

      There are certainly exceptions to this rule. For example, the pharmaceutical industry, because of its huge upfront costs, often will not develop a perfectly useful drug unless it can patent it.

      I remember a conference in which a guy from a lab told us that they did not look for certain efficient molecules because they were partly based on mecanisms patented by other labs. Thus, there are good molecules out there that could cure serious disease, but because they involve several mecanisms patented by different companies, nobody will ever look for them.

      --
      Go debian!

    9. Re:Evidence that the system is a failure by mesocyclone · · Score: 2, Informative

      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.

    10. Re:Evidence that the system is a failure by Joe+Decker · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Trade secrets wouldn't work well for drugs even if there weren't disclosure requirements--even if they weren't required to disclose the ingredient list, the actual drugs themselves would provide a pretty strong clue. This problem is common to many forms of technology, reverse engineering isn't necessarily difficult.

      --
      I'm a nature photographer.
  4. Do It Right by SpamJunkie · · Score: 5, Insightful

    My feelings on this are simple: do it right or don't do it at all.

    If the government can't create a system that approves patents corrently then there should be no approval process at all, and thus, no patents at all. It would be better to let the market protect innovators, however weak the protection, than to let a flawed patent office allow innovators to be harmed by those that would exploit the flaws.

  5. If they are overworked by SirGeek · · Score: 3, Insightful
    They should ban together and refuse. That is what they need to do to protect the system. Yes, I understand that it is difficult but if they don't bitch all the way up the line, then who will ?

    I mean, Ok. They get fired for saying that they can't do their jobs. They would be able to go to almost ANY news outlet and get their story printed . Patent Office fires worker for complaining about unfair practices . That would not look good for the USPTO.

    I also find the article "lacking" in explaining HOW they search let alone WHERE they search.

    If the internet isn't used , Why don't they mention it - We don't bother to check google if the idea exists already. We only look if it is already patented, not if it already exists in the public domain.

    --
    UPS Sucks
    1. Re:If they are overworked by Xzzy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      > They should ban together and refuse. That is what they need to do to protect the system. Yes, I
      > understand that it is difficult but if they don't bitch all the way up the line, then who will ?

      You have no idea how government entities function, do you? :)

      10% of the people (maybe even less) working at a site will actually be good workers who give a fig about their job and how well things are run. The issue is that this segment is never in a position to institute change. These people don't stick around long, they become cynical quite fast and generally quit and return to jobs in the private sector (which often have just as fucked up management systems, but in completely different ways).

      Another 10% of the people are the ones who can make decisions, but have absolutely no background to make effective decisions (they got where they are mostly via seniority). They instead opt to spend their days in endless meetings hoping someone else makes a decision so they can go back to "fine tuning" the organization chart.

      The remaining 80% is dead wood. Completely lazy, useless fatasses who know it's damn near impossible to fire a government employee and only show up to ensure they keep getting a paycheck. Their sole desire is to avoid rocking the boat, in effort to avoid losing their gravy train. Most of them have held government jobs for so long no one even notices how bloody useless they are, except for the original 10% who are powerless to do anything about it.

      Point being, a majority of the people working for the USPTO plain out doesn't give a shit. They will NEVER "strike" or "take it to the press", soley because it means they would actually have to scrape their butts out of their chair and rub some of their brain cells together.

  6. Shades of 'Yes Minister' by Space+cowboy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    There was a British TV comedy about the manipulation of government by the civil service (and vice versa, sometimes :-) called 'Yes Minister', and 'Yes Prime Minister'. One of the favourite tactics of "Sir Humphrey" (civil service mandarin) is to deluge the minister with reams of information, to make it completely impossible to make a decision by a given deadline.

    It strikes me that when a patent is 160,000 pages long, someone is trying the same tactic. Perhaps there ought to be a limit on the size of patent applications. After all, if it is sufficiently revolutionary to be awarded protection from its possible competition, it ought to be easily stated and understood. Let anything else just compete.

    I suspect some would lose out, but I also think the patent system overall would win. The original patent applications were on a single sheet of paper....

    Simon.

    --
    Physicists get Hadrons!
  7. Prior Art by jolyonr · · Score: 3, Funny

    It must be hard to go through hundreds of thousands of documents looking for prior art. look how hard it is sometimes for the slashdot editors to read through a couple of plages to look for previous posts of the same story :) (and yes, I know this story is ok)

    --


    Please read my Canon EOS tech blog at http://www.everyothershot.com
  8. The essence of how patents are used by ZorroXXX · · Score: 3, Insightful
    From the article: ... says Nolan. "They want to see how far they can go, and almost anything I give them is going to limit what somebody else can do."

    This is exactly what is wrong with the (current) patent system. It is supposed to promote innovation but instead it is used as a tool to put sticks in the wheels of the competitors.

    --
    When you are sure of something, you probably are wrong (search for "Unskilled and Unaware of It").
    1. Re:The essence of how patents are used by infolib · · Score: 2, Interesting

      ...the (current) patent system ... is used as a tool to put sticks in the wheels of the competitors.

      It's not a bug - it's a feature. Businesses want monopolies, so we set up this type of deal called a "patent" that lets them have one in return for financing and disclosing an invention.

      The problem is that we're in many cases showing really poor tradesmanship: We give away monopolies for inventions that we would have had for free anyway. (Or we give excessively broad monopolies for barely non-trivial inventions.)

      I shouldn't have to expatiate on why monopolies are mostly bad, and government granting them for free to corporations outside democratic control even worse. Go read Adam Smith.

      --
      Any sufficiently advanced libertarian utopia is indistinguishable from government.
  9. Rich and powerful interests want bad patents. by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 4, Interesting


    Rich and powerful interests don't want good patent examinations. They want the control that comes from having spurious patent approvals, which must be contested in expensive court proceedings. Those interests make sure that the U.S. patent and trademark office is under-funded. Twenty years ago there was better funding.

    This is just one more example of the rapidly widening corruption in the U.S. government. Another example: Vice-president Dick Cheney, when he worked in the defense department, had the rules changed about procuring services during times of war. Then, as Vice-president, he pushed for a war with Iraq, and made sure the services went to his former company, Halliburton.

    As David Letterman said, when you write a check for your part of the $87 billion that will be used to "rebuild" Iraq (after bombing it), remember that there are two Ls in Halliburton.

  10. A day in the life of a patent examiner by Dark+Lord+Seth · · Score: 4, Funny

    09:00: Get up, sniff glue
    09:30: Read newspaper, lick a poisonous toad
    10:30: Arrive at work, get high on cough syrup
    10:31: Review patents
    17:30: Go home, yell at imaginairy wife, pass out on a skittle frenzy

    --
    Hate me!
  11. But patents aren't only for corporations... by fullmetal55 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    also for individuals who don't have the resources to produce the products but have the ingenuity and drive to create the new products. and as such the patent system allows them to still reap the rewards of their hard work. I don't think corporations need patents either, but the patent system or something like it still needs to protect the little guy. disbanding the patent system punishes the little guy while rewarding the big corporations.

    1. Re:But patents aren't only for corporations... by dada21 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I wish I could agree with you in accepting that patents help the individual, but in my experience, the process of getting a patent does not seem to make the benefit worth it.

      An individual with an idea can't go very far unless they have entrepreneurship as well. If they don't have the drive to promote an idea, what good is the idea? A patent may offer them something to sell to a bigger corporation, much more can be done just by getting together with people who want to promote the idea for their own mutual gain.

      If I invented a new idea, and I couldn't distribute it, I would still have the ability to find someone else who can. Entering into a binding contract, we could create a partnership (or corporation). Until that contract is issued, I wouldn't have to explain the idea or the secrets of the idea. A non-disclosure agreement and a binding contract are really all you need to protect the idea (as is obvious from one of the links I posted in my original message).

    2. Re:But patents aren't only for corporations... by fullmetal55 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      but without the patent system, whats to prevent one of your "friends" from saying, ahh screw you, I'm gonna go make my own, and leave you and your hard work in the cold. with no legal recourse to get rewarded for your work. corporations are especially greedy, I think we can both agree on that, and as someone else said here, whats to stop them from saying "bugger off kid, we don't want your gadget" and then go and manufacture a million of them before you have a chance to find a corporation who will produce it and pay you. so this theoretical person had the drive to pitch his idea to corporations and get some way to produce it, yet they were shoved aside and their invention is now helping the world do whatever it was intended to do yet he doesn't see a dime from his work, whats his incentive to produce another innovation? nothing. he won't invent anymore. people just steal his inventions. do that a few times, and individuals won't innovate anymore. when they have no chance to make money, money is the number one driving force for innovation. you remove that incentive and innovation is going to stall. only corporations could innovate, and its really not in their interests to innovate. it is essentially better not to innovate for corporations as they can continue to milk existing products from now til eternity. Its naive to believe that a corporation will look after the consumer's best interest. and whos to say that a corporation would even agree to an NDA from some shmoe off of the street. it again comes down to the fact that innovation isn't in the corporations interests, and essentially an NDA is similar to patent law in that respects anyway.

      But they should limit the patents corporations are allowed to create and own. maybe have a seperate clause in it for corporation owned patents having a life-span of say 5 years. add another 5 years on top of that for individual persons. after that patent protection is no longer an issue, it ends.

    3. Re:But patents aren't only for corporations... by HeghmoH · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Until that contract is issued, I wouldn't have to explain the idea or the secrets of the idea. A non-disclosure agreement and a binding contract are really all you need to protect the idea (as is obvious from one of the links I posted in my original message).

      This is precisely what happened before patents, and exactly why the entire patent system was invented in the first place. People would get good ideas, and try to sell them. But they can't disclose the idea, because then they don't get rewarded. They also can't find a buyer, because they can't explain the idea well enough to prospective buyers without giving the idea away. Thus, the good idea dies with the person who came up with it.

      Lots and lots of inventions were lost in exactly this way. Many people would rather die with their invention a secret than have somebody else make a fortune out of it. The key component to a patent is that it is required to publish a full specification of the invention, enough so that a knowledgeable person could build it, in return for the patent. This way, even if the inventor has a heart attack or is hit by a bus or every city where his multinational conglomerate has offices is hit by gigantic rocks from outer space, the invention is not lost.

      The simple fact of the matter is that, like copyrights, patents are fundamentally good ideas; it's the implementations that are broken. Both were originally conceived not as a way to let people make money, but as an aid to society, to promote invention and creativity. The problem now is that it's gone too far towards giving people money. Scale back the terms of copyrights and patents, examine them more thoroughly, make people pay (more) for them, etc., and you can fix the system. It's not necessary to destroy it.

      --
      Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
  12. Re:A day by muyuubyou · · Score: 2, Funny

    11:00am Bezos from Amazon: clicking the mouse once in order to buy something

    ACCEPTED


    11:45am Amazon company: Internet-based referral system

    Hmmm...there is prior art in referral systems... but the guy used a hyphen between Internet and based and Google doesn't give results...
    ACCEPTED



    01:00pm lunch break

    03:00pm proudly recheck the glorious list of the top innovative patents I've granted.


  13. They don't like it? by Rogerborg · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Then they can resign. $45K starting salary rising to $90K for a 4 day week? Fuck them. Let's subcontract the whole lot to India.

    --
    If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
  14. If doing a good job's impossible, why bother? by Junior+J.+Junior+III · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So, if you know you can't possibly do a good job in evaluating that volume of patents, why not slow things down to a crawl, and do stuff the right way? Sure, we'd still be looking at the merits of the application for the patent for the transistor, but isn't that better than no-look rubber stamping of bullshit like one-click shopping?

    --
    You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
  15. and stop patent inflation today. by ciaran_o_riordan · · Score: 2, Interesting

    this article is yet another nail in the coffin of the patent system

    Hopefully, but that is somewhere far off in the future. Right now we have to stop expansion of the patent system, like the way the EU is considering expanding it to cover all ideas implementable through software. How would patent examiners possibly get better by increasing their workload?

    Plus it will be a lot harder to revise the patent system if it is embedded in every industry.

    --
    Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
  16. Acacia and streaming video/audio patent by Syncalot · · Score: 3, Interesting

    over the last year there has been a company claiming a patent on streaming video/audio, (ie not live) but anything recorded that gets d/l and then is played back on a computer. I would say that 3/4 of the internet does that. They are now targeting the adult industry first and sending out letters to individuals demanding $1500 and up from each webmaster who has video on their site. Some of you might not care and say well its the adult industry let them get screwed, but this is a more serious issue for everyone who uses video/audio on their web site and will eventually get hit by this company for voilation of their patent. now this may see really silly to alot of people having a patent on this but they are out there sending letters and getting some people to sign. Here is a PR released by a site called fight the patent which is helping people who get letters fight this. http://www.fighthepatent.com/v2/PR-1117.html I cant seem to find a link anymore to a scanned in letter, but its very generic, and lits the persons name with some paragraphs stating their claim on their patents, how ever no web sites are mentioned in the letter and their demand is $1500+ and you need to have this in by nov 30th. this goes even further. if your a website owner and LINK to a site that has video/audio on it and make money off of sending users to that site you are also in violation.. now come on fokes this is really out of control it seems their patent is based upon an idea of sending data from one location to the next then playing back that video/audio content. There is no actual software technology they developed that people are using with out paying. just another reason these patent guys really need to look at older patents and start really removing them. Hell I saw a special on a father who patent his girl swining from left to right instead of front to back.. its all about prior art and acacia patent lies in 1990. so if there is anything or any proof of video/audio d/l, streaming this patent can be changed. sorry for the rant, its just a few of my friends are in this situation and i thought maybe a voice for them would help.. just search google news for the word Acacia to find out more.

    --
    Pocket Girls. Mobile Adult Mini Mags for your Phone.
    1. Re:Acacia and streaming video/audio patent by Tablizer · · Score: 4, Funny

      over the last year there has been a company claiming a patent on streaming video/audio, (ie not live) but anything recorded that gets d/l and then is played back on a computer......Some of you might not care and say well its the adult industry let them get screwed

      All the porn industry has to do is threaten to withold any porn from ever being seen by the patent threatening company's employees. "You will never see another naked woman besides your wife again if you press this patent on us."

      A threat like that has to work.

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
  17. Re:Google by Pembers · · Score: 2, Informative

    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...

  18. Pretty straightforward by Timesprout · · Score: 2, Funny

    8:00 Arrive in office
    8:05 Begin daily caffeine overdose
    8:10 Check email
    8:20 Check todays work schedule
    8:30 Retrieve documentation for todays application
    9:00 Begin carefully reading application, constantly referring to extensive memory of patents already extant that may cover this application
    9:05 God this is boring
    9:06 Begin fantasizing about a combination of Halle Berry and strawberry icecream
    9:09 Mental decision: Approve patent
    9:09:03 Resume Halle fantasy
    ...
    4:55 Inform supervisisor by email patent is accepted as there is no evidence that Halle Berry has ever been used in this manner before.
    4:56 Send additional mail to supervisor, correcting self by replacing Halle with object of patent

    --
    Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
    What truth?
    There is no dupe
  19. Hype job? by Quixote · · Score: 4, Insightful
    I smell a hype-job.

    Here's a quote:
    When a patent is first filed, the key hurdles are novelty and obviousness; i.e., does this idea really represent something new, and is it informed by a particular creativity? Eighty percent of patent applications are rejected for failing to meet those first hurdles.

    Someone please tell the writer about some of the "novel" patents issued by the USPTO.

  20. Distributed patent processing by satyap · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Distributed patent processing -- have a bunch of (volunteer) people do the legwork etc. The patent officers can do the final check. It should help a little.

  21. Alternative is PERPETUAL trade secrets by tepples · · Score: 3, Informative

    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?

  22. Maybe someone should... by thewils · · Score: 4, Funny

    ...patent a new method of submitting patents to the patent office.

    --
    Once I was a four stone apology. Now I am two separate gorillas.
  23. Using Patents by mindhaze · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Here's a question for the opinionated Slashdot crowd...

    Is it legit, ie: won't have me tied up with lawsuits for the next several years, to use patented technology for personal applications?

    Think, perhaps, of a power-generation system that would be suitable for a small hobby farm. If I took the patent, built it, and used it on my own land, but did not sell it, am I violating the patent?

    1. Re:Using Patents by scrytch · · Score: 2, Informative
      Think, perhaps, of a power-generation system that would be suitable for a small hobby farm. If I took the patent, built it, and used it on my own land, but did not sell it, am I violating the patent?

      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 ndex.html#infringement
      Infringement of a patent consists of the unauthorized making, using, offering for sale, or selling any patented invention within the United States or U.S. Territories, or importing into the United States of any patented invention during the term of the patent. If a patent is infringed, the patentee may sue for relief in the appropriate federal court. The patentee may ask the court for an injunction to prevent the continuation of the infringement and may also ask the court for an award of damages because of the infringement. In such an infringement suit, the defendant may raise the question of the validity of the patent, which is then decided by the court. The defendant may also aver that what is being done does not constitute infringement. Infringement is determined primarily by the language of the claims of the patent and, if what the defendant is making does not fall within the language of any of the claims of the patent, there is no literal infringement.
      --
      I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
  24. Maybe we should make challenges cheaper by MythoBeast · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It does seem that the process for creating patents is largely incapable of determining the validity of patents. It works more like a sanity check, and barely that.

    Considering this, it would make more sense if it were cheaper for external entities to challenge patents after they were created. As things stand, it takes thousands, or sometimes tens of thousands of dollars to challenge even the most obviously flawed patent.

    We could, for instance, create a standard reveiw process where an individual presents evidence of patent conflict or prior art. Since the claimant is doing much of the research in advance, the cost should be considerably less.

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  25. That old chestnut again by Vainglorious+Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful
    the pharmaceutical industry, because of its huge upfront costs, often will not develop a perfectly useful drug unless it can patent it

    I might have more sympathy for this view were it not for the fact that pharmcos spend twice as much on advertising as they do on R&D

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    1. Re:That old chestnut again by Vainglorious+Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      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.

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  26. Re:Open Patents by Carl+Oppedahl · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

  27. Re:Well, it can't work this way. by SquarePants · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The USPTO IS in the black. Has been for years. It is one of the few agencies that makes money for the gov't. The problem is that the funds incoming to the USPTO from the public go into the general government fund, not in the USPTO's fund. Then, every year, the USPTO has to grovel to congress for money. It usually gets less than it asks for and ALWAYS gets less than it generates (its called diversion and many think it amounts to an unconbstitutional tax on inventors).

    Also, the USPTO actually looses money on the examination fees it charges. Although it can cost upwards of $20K in attorneys' fees to prepare and file an application, the governement filing fees are usually less than $1,000. The USPTO makes about 2/3 of its monry from the maintenance fees that existing patent holders have to pay to maintain their patents in force.

  28. It's almost too simple... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    My favourite quote, in light of the Microsoft Anti-Trust settlement, has to be the following:

    "Esther Kepplinger, deputy commissioner for patent operations and self-described "supervisor of supervisors of supervisors," was one of fewer than ten examiners doing biotech patents 30 years ago; she has overseen a fifty-fold increase in demand and specialization. Still, she says "when you're experienced at this, you can make decisions whether you know the art or not," a process she compares with a court's ruling on antitrust in high technology."

    and this is a good thing?!

  29. 190,000 patents granted a year? by rollingcalf · · Score: 2, Insightful

    That is a major symptom of the problem. Obtaining a patent should be just a notch below the level of rare and high achievement required to be an Olympic medalist, discover a new galaxy, or win a Nobel Prize. For crying out loud, you are saying that none of the other six billion people on earth did what you claim to do, and that no one else will naturally create that when faced with a similar problem in the course of their work. That is an extremely strong statement against the rest of the human race, and IMHO there aren't enough inventions that rise to the standard of novelty to truly deserve 190,000 patents in a decade.

    If the USPTO were more strict with upholding a high standards for patents, the vast majority of applications that are submitted today would get thrown out even before commencing a prior art search. Eventually, the flood of applications would be reduced to a small number of worthy contenders, which would be a much more manageable load.

    Unfortunately, the policies of the USPTO put the burden of proof on the patent examiner. They have to grant the patent unless they can find prior art or make a strong case why the creation is obvious. But the burden should be on the applicant to impress the examiners with the device's originality and utility, because a patent granted in error places a very high burden on the rest of society. The benefit of the doubt should be given to the public at large, not the patent applicant. Until that policy is changed they will be flooded with frivolous applications, and be pressured to grant patents for most of them, because it is so much more difficult to deny them.

    "It was never the object of those laws to grant a monopoly for every trifling device, every shadow of a shade of an idea, which would naturally and spontaneously occur to any skilled mechanic or operator in the ordinary progress of manufactures. Such an indiscriminate creation of exclusive privileges tends rater to obstruct than to stimulate invention. It creates a class of speculative schemers who make it their business to watch the advancing wave of improvement, and gather its foam in the form of patented monopolies, which enable them to lay a heavy tax upon the industry of the country, without contributing anything to the real advancement of the arts. It embarrasses the honest pursuit of business with fears and apprehensions of concealed liens and unknown liabilities lawsuits and vexatious accountings for profits made in good faith."
    -- US Supreme Court (Atlantic Works v. Brady, 1017 U.S. 192, 200 (1882)).

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  30. Patent Examination by zungu · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Many people think patents are evil. The system of Patents, like any other system, is played with certain rules. Obtaining a patent does not mean that you have a ultra-strong right. Any issued patent is open to various challenges like reexamination and validty. When a patent owner sues another party for infringment, the infringer typically challenger the validity of the patent on all possible grounds. During such challenge a wide search of art, which is much more specific and comrehensive than that carried out by the Examiner, is carried out to invalidate patents. So even if there are patent examiners who have allowed crappy patents yet that does not mean end of the world. In a sense patents are the original open-source movement. It is to be more correct a open-concept with a little delay movement. Coke's formula is protected as trade-secret, and nobody can force them to reveal it. On the contrary, if Coke had patentended it it would have available to chemists to study as early as in 18 months (patnent App Publication). And anyone could make Coke after 15 years when the patent expired. Yes, 15 years seems long, yet within that time someone could have used the information in the Coke Patent and devised a better drink! That is the value of patent. Today no-one will ever know the software techniques embedded in proprietary products yet if they were patented or their techniques patented, we would have a printed record of such techniques which would enrich the knowledgebase of computer science. Without patents we can only rely on the charitable sense of these monolithic corporations to reveal their secrets. One must understand that patents apply to many things. A drug company keeping information secret is harmful to progress of medicine and society immediately, while a software company not patenting and keeping its techniques secret may only be a long-term threat to society. We must think of patent in more broader sense.

  31. wow you totally dont have a clue by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    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.