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Mistakes Found in 98% of US Patents
Artem Tashkinov writes to tell us The Register is reporting that almost every US patent contains at least one mistake. The findings from a recent look by Itellevate, a firm that offers support services to intellectual property lawyers, claim that most of these errors are trivial but approximately 2 percent of the patents examined had errors that weakened the core claims of the patent itself.
is the patent system patented?
I have 1 million monkeys on a million year contract to make me a better sig.
As with everything you read, please consider the source. In this case, the sole source of the facts here is a firm that specializes in support services for patents. That's not to say that their findings are incorrect, but you should do your own research before quoting or taking other action based on their results.
Do you want to know another thing that I think is wrong with the patent system? You do? Great. I think patents are too expensive for the average individual and too cheap for the average corporation. Too bad I don't have any suggestion to make the patent system better.
Religion for nerds. Stuff that really matters
From a recent New Yorker article detailing R.I.M.'s patent problems and "patent trolls", "since the office (the patent office) is funded by patent fees, as opposed to getting its budget from Washington, it has a financial incentive to process applications as quickly, rather than diligently, as possible".
Examiners spend between 12 and 22 hours per patent, with an acceptance rate in the U.S. of ninety-five percent...no wonders there's so many errors.
How are they arriving at this conclusion?
The important thing to remember is that the claim came from a group who gets paid to help people file patents. So someone who stands to make some cash if people start throwing their patent proofreading and prior arts searches to them said "Hey, 98% of patents have problems! Maybe you should find another group to look over your stuff!"
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." -Albert Einstein
That note would be private correspondence, not intended for you, and already protected in many ways. However patents are public documents, available to anyone who can read (and maybe pay a small fee.) There hardly can be any restriction on anyone expressing his opinion about a public document.
Well, apparently you're incorrect.
TFA says that these errors are significant and they weaken the core claims of the patent.
I don't understand how you can spout something contrary to the findings of a fairly lengthy review and get modded Insightful.
If you didn't learn it in grammar school, allow me to inform you that omitted punctuation is not just a "speed bump to reading." Omitted commas or other forms of punctuation can wildly change the interpretation of a sentence.
This is why local politics can devolve into petty battles over commas and words, because just one word or one comma can change the way a law gets applied.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Company that offers help with filing patents finds that 98% of people filing patents really should hire them. More at 11.
Please when you read the article, don't forget who is behind the study.
This is one of those typical statistical claims that people use to push their products. In this case, it is a company specialized in helping people to make their patent filings and they try to use statistics to scare people making them think that their patent filings might be invalid due to mistakes and thus hope they use the services of the company.
If you really want reliable statistics on the number of patent filings with mistakes and on the consequences off those mistakes, you should never trust such claims from a company who uses them purely for marketing purposes. This is a bit similar to Microsoft's TCO claims on Windows versus Linux.
I simply say that the source of these statistics is biased and as such the statistics are unreliable. They might or might or might not be true, but I would certainly not trust them.
Marcel
We are talking about 98% of patents containing some error. Now, 2% have serious errors and that is something that should be addressed but the rest of it is just bullshit. First off, what are these errors? Are they small grammar and spelling issues? Hell, half the people on slashdot cannot use the English language properly. Let's put this into perspective. We are talking about finding an error in a specification to a patent which can sometimes run 50 pages in length. As everyone is so fond of pointing out, the Patent Office has a large backlog of patents and there are complaints of patents getting issued that should not be. So imagine how poor examination would be if they needed to proofread the entire thing for grammar and spelling errors which have no real effect on the patent itself.
Let us also remember that the people who examine these patents are Engineers and Scientists. I do not know how many Engineers and Scientist you know, but many of the ones I do are not usually the best with the grammar and spelling; I sometimes have to read sentences several times over before I believe it sounds right, and even then it is usually still wrong in some way. The fact is the USPTO does not have the manpower or the time to be fixing every grammatical mistake that may occur in a patent, and I would venture a guess that it is frowned upon because it takes away from the actual prosecution on the merits of the application.
As a final note, many patents come in from Asian countries that are simply translated by machine and not proofread to their fullest extent. If a translation of this sort is very poor then examiners can inform the applicant that examination is not possible because of the poor grammar and request a more appropriate translation. I really wouldn't be surprised if many of the other patent offices have similar problems with minor errors.
"Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb."