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Patent Examiners Flee USPTO
john-da-luthrun writes "Soaring numbers of patent applications for software and business processes is not only leading to the ludicrous patents for the likes of Amazon and Microsoft. The stress of dealing with vast numbers of applications is leading to an exodus of patent examiners from the USPTO, reports FCW.com. A US Government Accountability Office report (PDF) says that the USPTO has made progress in hiring examiners, 'but challenges to retention remain'. The IP Kat blog quotes Jason Schulz of the EFF, who comments that 'The incredible surge of patent applications, especially in the software and internet business method arena, is just crushing them, and the management problems are rising to the surface with greater visibility for those reasons. Where anything under the sun is patentable, it puts an unbelievable amount of pressure on the patent office'."
A fundamental change will be required to deal with the ever increasing volume of patent applications. I would suggest some form of first level open community review is needed for a first round of patent research and possible elimination based on prior art (you know, as in the Bazaar part of The Cathedral and the Bazaar)...that, and of course outlaw patents on ideas implemented purely by software.
Of course, to have a public review of a patent application the applicant would need protection against someone stealing the idea before the patent was issued.
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
If we assume those patent officers are intelligent and familiar with the tasks they were assigned to perform, they must be able to see that so many of those patents either don't make sense, or fall into the 'common sense' category.
If you were an employee who had to deal with issues that seem unfair and unreasonable to you, especially if you were 'sensitive' enough as to even blame, in part, your very self for being part of this stupidity, you may have done the very same thing.
John Caramack puts it all in prespective:
"The idea that I can be presented with a problem, set out to logically solve it with the tools at hand, and wind up with a program that could not be legally used because someone else followed the same logical steps some years ago and filed for a patent on it is horrifying." (on software patents)
Technology ramblings : Simple is Beautiful
I have a friend that used to work at the USPTO and one that just got his PhD and tried to get a job there.
The guy that used to work there told me that the USPTO recently changed their benefits and no longer pay for their workers to get a law degree, etc., if they stay with the USPTO for a certain amount of time after getting it. This is the main reason he left - he did part time schooling for awhile but now decided to just leave and get it done asap to get his law degree faster.
The other was told, even with a contact inside the USPTO (this was right as the guy above was getting ready to leave), that the USPTO was not hiring and that they received over 5000 applications for the 10 slots they were trying to fill. This was for the biotech/life sciences division of the USPTO.
So, essentially, from what I've observed, there cutting some of their best benefits and getting more then enough applications for new people. I'm assuming this entire thing is primarily a budget issue - as almost everything is down here in D.C.
Of course it is. Gee, I wonder why PEs are leaving the USPTO? Maybe because like in EVERY DYSFUNCTIONAL COMPANY, the difference between theory and practice is EXTREME? Duh.
PEs are leaving since they know they are under pressure to rubber-stamp applications without regard to proper examination (and more to the point, REJECTION on the basis of prior art and obviousness). Probably, the PEs who try to properly examine a patent app cross their bosses time and time again, leading to a wholesale drop in morale.
This exodus is only going to lead to an even easier rubber-stamping process. The American public had better fucking wake up. The USPTO has been completely subverted by ONE customer -- the patent applicants (uniformly, corporations). The USPTO has no regard whatsoever for the OTHER customer: the American citizen, who requires patents to be innovative and not obvious, in order to qualify for the process of exchanging monopolization for disclosure.
Unfortunately, the chances of getting such an organization fixed in this hypercorporate political environment is essentially ZERO.
[You have a stable society when some nut guns down a schoolyard and the law doesn't change.]