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

yeah right...

[Anonymous Coward]

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

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.

Evidence that the system is a failure

[dada21]

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.

Re:Evidence that the system is a failure

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Evidence that the system is a failure

[mesocyclone]

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.

Re:Evidence that the system is a failure

[bug-eyed monster]

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.

Do It Right

[SpamJunkie]

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.

If they are overworked

[SirGeek]

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.

Re:If they are overworked

[Xzzy]

> 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.

Shades of 'Yes Minister'

[Space cowboy]

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.

Prior Art

[jolyonr]

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)

The essence of how patents are used

[ZorroXXX]

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.

Rich and powerful interests want bad patents.

[Futurepower(R)]

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.

A day in the life of a patent examiner

[Dark Lord Seth]

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

But patents aren't only for corporations...

[fullmetal55]

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.

Re:But patents aren't only for corporations...

[dada21]

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).

Re:But patents aren't only for corporations...

[HeghmoH]

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.

They don't like it?

[Rogerborg]

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 doing a good job's impossible, why bother?

[Junior J. Junior III]

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?

Acacia and streaming video/audio patent

[Syncalot]

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.

Re:Acacia and streaming video/audio patent

[Tablizer]

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.

Hype job?

[Quixote]

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.

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?

Maybe someone should...

[thewils]

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

Using Patents

[mindhaze]

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?

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:Well, it can't work this way.

[SquarePants]

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.

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.