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.

Comments

That's funny

[Anonymous Coward]

98% of patents are mistakenly granted too!

Breaking News

[ironwill96]

In other breaking news, Jimmy Hoffa was found today on a park bench clutching a newspaper whose headline read "Sun found to be hot!" and "Sky really is blue!".

Patents..wrong..who would've thunk it?

The sky is falling

[Lacit]

Whoa, you mean people actually read patents?

are you serious?

[Aurisor]

I find it absolutely impossible to believe that people are incapable of writing a single sentance without making a mistake.

Re:are you serious?

[William Robinson]

The mistakes are found by lawyers... :)

An old joke for your reference..

One day in Contract Law class, Professor Jepson asked one of his better students, "Now if you were to give someone an orange, how would you go about it?"

The student replied, "Here's an orange."

The professor was livid. "No! No! Think like a lawyer!"

The student then recited, "Okay, I'd tell him, 'I hereby give and convey to you all and singular, my estate and interests, rights, claim, title, calim and advantages of and in, said orange, together with all its rind, juice, pulp, and seeds, and all rights and advantages with full power to bite, cut, freeze and otherwise eat, the same, or give the same away with and without the pulp, juice, rind and seeds, anything herein before or hereinafter or in any deed, or deeds, instruments of whatever nature or kind whatsoever to the contrary in anywise notwithstanding..."

You mean like...

[Dr. Eggman]

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PT O1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm &r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6,960,975.WKU.&OS=PN/6,960,975&RS =PN/6,960,975

For it's defyance of the laws of physics?

or...

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PT O1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm &r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6,368,227.WKU.&OS=PN/6,368,227&RS =PN/6,368,227

This one; recanted because of a technicallity in its wording, even though it's trying to patent swinging on a swing. (Both links were off wikipedia)

Lesser of two evils

[Anonymous Coward]

Laugh all you want, but you really have two choices in the matter. As an examiner, we get on average somewhere near 25 hours a case. That's it. Pick one of the following:

1. Find good prior art.
2. Find spelling mistakes.

My boss yells at me when I point out a spelling mistake on page 13 of the specification because it means I wasted my time doing something other than look for prior art.

Here's a Real Example of a "trivial" Mistake

[Compulawyer]

In Chef America, Inc. v. Lamb-Westin, Inc. the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (the US Appeals court that hears all appeals in patent cases) found US Patent No. 4,761,290 to be not infringed because the claim used the word "to" instead of "at." Quoth the Court:

The sole issue in this appeal is the meaning of the following language in a patent claim: "heating the resulting batter-coated dough to a temperature in the range of about 400 F. to 850 F." The question is whether the dough itself is to be heated to that temperature (as the district court held), or whether the claim only specifies the temperature at which the dough is to be heated, i.e., the temperature of the oven (as the appellant contends). We agree with the district court that the claim means what it says (the dough is to be heated "to" the designated temperature range) and therefore affirm [the trial court's finding of non-infringement].

As most people know, dough heated to 850 degrees F. is no longer dough - it is charcoal. Not the most effective result for a process that is intended to result in the production of an edible substance.

BTW - the two law firms who tried this case are two of the top firms in the US. I am confident that the parties each spent hundreds of thousands of dollars arguing over a single word. And a very short word at that.