Slashdot Mirror
A Look at the US Patent System
cheesedog writes "The LA Times published an interesting editorial on the current state of our patent system. From the article: 'on many levels, the U.S. patent system is profoundly flawed. Too many patents are issued for 'innovations' that are obvious, vague or already in wide use.' Online reaction has been mixed, with PatentHawk striking out in defense of the patent system, and Right to Create providing some support for the LA Times editorial."
1. Create a dictionary of all words used in applying for a patent.
See MPEP 2111.01. In applying for a patent, you may define "giraffe" to mean "flashlight". There are at present few (if any) reasons for doing so, but if you're going to "computerize" the patent prior art search as you have described, there is suddenly an extremely good reason to say "giraffe" when you mean "flashlight".
2. A second dictionary of terms which are equal to each other.
See above. As an aside, maybe a better solution would be a classification system that categorizes patents and patent applications according to the technology involved, regardless of the vocabulary invoked? Such a classification could be performed by humans - maybe even get patent examiners involved. If a certain group gets too large, further subdivide it. Try to keep the groups to about 250 patents if possible. (I've described the system that's been in use for at least 100 years, but seriously, this super-thesaurus idea sounds promising. Except useless because of MPEP 2111.01.)
3b. All entries should be listed (just like with Google) in a descending order of revelance.
This has been available to examiners for years.
4. All applied for patents should be kept on file so they too can be checked against.
This was a great idea when Thomas Jefferson first thought of it.
People may say we can't do this.
Yes, but Thomas Jefferson was a great man, and when the computer technology of 1987 implemented the rest of what you're talking about, those people looked like idiots.
As for graphical pictures showing how something works - it depends.
The entire collection of patents (except the X series that burned) are available in image format to the examiners.
You need the bad patents in there as a way to say "Hey! Here are examples of why you can't have a patent!"
I'm not sure how you define a "bad patent" - that is not an invitation to explain - but regardless, this is an absurdly bad idea. As an alternative, investigate what an SIR is at MPEP 1111
Just my $0.02 worth.
Is there a rebate?
Other responses suggest your whole post is plagarized. If so, I imagine it was -extremely- relavant 15 years ago. I really wish Slashdot had a "What Made You Think You Were Qualified To Post?" moderation.