Slashdot Mirror
PTO Seeks Public Input on Patent Applications
KingAdrock writes to tell us Sciencemag is reporting that the US Patent and Trademark office (PTO) is floating the idea of an online pilot program to gather public input on patent applications. From the article: "Speaking last week at an open forum, officials said that tapping into the expertise of outside scientists, lawyers, and laypeople would improve the quality of patents -- and might also reduce a backlog that this month topped 1 million applications. "Instead of one examiner, what if you have thousands of examiners reading an application?" says Beth Simone Noveck of New York University Law School, who is an independent advocate of the idea."
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/09/12 28221
The new article is however a derivative, because the discussion seems further on now and a site has been setup.
liqbase
Whats going to stop opponents of said technology from sabotauging patents?
1. Improve process vastly
2. Bullshit applications discarded (99%+)
3. New applications drop 99%
4. Paychecks at the PTO all disappear
5. 10,000 lawyers out of work, but still alive to terrorize other parts of the economy
6. ???
7. PROFIT
Yea.. that will happen...
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
Ok so I anthropomorphized application... But I am just saying, by creating a system more capable of finding the correct examiners for a particular application (perhaps by further defining the details required to submit a patent application) the system would more efficiently utilize the knowledge of each examiner. Then perhaps we wouldn't need to throw "thousands" of examiners at a single application?
TLF
I do not respond to cowards. Especially anonymous ones.
Something about barn doors and bolting horses springs to mind...
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
There are some who might argue that applications need to remain secret in order to prevent competitors from snatching the idea and using it in their products, because it's possible that the application will be denied, and then the patent submitter will lose his competitive advantage.
To those people, I say: applying for a 20-year monopoly on a method should carry significant risks. The decision to apply for a patent should not be one that is made lightly. Those who want such a monopoly should have to be exposed to the risk that what could have remained a trade secret is instead exposed to the world without any compensation being made to the originator.
If the patent is approved then suddenly the patent holder can arrange licensing with those who have already implemented products using the method. If a patent looks like it stands a really good chance of being approved, chances are others will stay away from it anyway. But woe to those who attempt to slide an obvious or previously-known method as a patent through such a system.
That's how it should be.
Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
I mean, I could say there was prior art or that the submitted "invention" completely lacks novelty, but such assertions would be more likely to be heeded if I also provided concrete references, and that takes non-trivial work (no, pointing at a Wikipedia article doesn't count).
So, if I do this, apart from the feel-good karma of smacking down patent trolls, what's in it for me? Maybe a tax credit? Waiver of fees for my own patent/SIR application?
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
I'll trade fast for accurate. Right now we have neither.
What?
More people - for one thing, how many Slashdotters can read and understand a patent (or even tell the difference between the claims and the technology description, and what they are for)? Putting this in the hands of laypeople will be a disaster.
:(
Then you have the conflict of interest. Let's say a large company wants to stomp a startup - they get their lawyers to wallop every part of the application, and they steal all the technology in the process. So much for the little guy.
Nope. I am not as optimistic as you are.
It's a very good idea in theory, but might not work so well in the real world. There would have to be a way to verify that "outside scientists" really are scientists. Also, how would training (presuming at least some training is needed...) be provided for the outside examiners?
"The patent office is weighing an online pilot project to solicit public input on patent applications. [...] The idea is for volunteers to be alerted about new patent applications--applications become public after 18 months--and invited to submit prior art."
If the idea is already patented... Oh the irony!!!
"Don't let fools fool you. They are the clever ones."
A "submarine patent" remains unpublished after it is granted. By running silent, running deep, the submarine patent's owners let other people develop and implement inadvertantly infringing products. Then *BLAMMO* the Patent surfaces and holds the inadvertant infringers at gunpoint (er, torpedo point. What-ever).
Publishing applications as soon as they are filed stops this tactic. Potential infringers have the ability to check whether their product infringes BEFORE they invest. That's a good thing!
--- Attorneys Assisting Citizen-Soldiers & Families -
One problem with measuring obviousness is that most things seem obvious after you've heard the solution.
Having peers review the actual patent, then asking them to honestly estimate it's obviousness is a tall order. Besides the fact that they now have been given your ideas (and may wish to see the patent thrown out), they must also ask themselves how easy it would be to solve a problem for which they already have the answer.
Instead, we should measure the patent's obviousness indirectly, by asking those "schooled in the art" to solve the same problem that the patent solves, without actually giving them the patent's solution.
If the patent is re-invented by the peers, it is non-obvious. If the solution isn't re-invented, then the peers either didn't care, didn't want to invest time in a solution, or the solution really is non-obvious-enough, that it's inventor deserves a brief monopoly.
Examples:
To EE/Computer/Radio peers: Somebody wants to patent a method to send and receive e-mail from a portable, wireless device. How would you do it?
To EE/AutoIndustry: Somebody wants to patent a method of sending an electric signal when the brake pedal is pressed. Give us some obvious solutions.
Here's the main problem with this idea: the vast, vast majority of people, even smart Slashdot readers, have no idea how to read a patent. Sure, they read the abstract and that might bring to mind some other invention that's sort-of-like the one described in the patent, and that is helpful to a small extent. However, did you know that the abstract has little to no bearing on what the patent actually covers?
Patent claim language (the actual property rights granted by the patent) is byzantine and ugly. Besides that, there are all kinds of nuances. Do you know the difference between an apparatus and a method patent? The terms used in the claims may (nay, probably) don't mean what you think they mean. The applicant doesn't even know what they mean, since the legal claim construction process only occurs when the patent is challenged. Then, if the applicant (as many do) uses USC 30 S112P6 "means-plus-function" language, you're in a whole other world of indirection and confusion.
Patents need reform, but having a million uneducated people looking at the applications is only part of the solution. Reforms to patent law itself, such as:
- Making applicants provide a binding glossary of terms
- Making applicants identify corresponding structure for means-plus-function elements
- Reforming the byzantine nature of claim language
would go miles and miles to easing the process and squeezing out inefficiency
If you'd read Frederick Hayak's "Road to Serfdom", essentially when a government's control overwhelms a society, then gaming the system is the only thing that pays.
He doesn't use those words, exactly. He puts it into terms of working vs. petitioning, then escalates it into lobbying and finally violence of different sorts, but that is essentially what he is saying.
Therefore, the powerful do game the system, and it will be gamed, and nobody will be able to stop them.
That's happening right now -- indeed, for as long as I have lived it's been happening -- in our Senate, House, and judiciary. Now it's also happening in the presidency.
I'm sure it will also happen in the PTO if they do this, just as it's already happening there now. I'm just not sure it will matter.
As the system starts to get more and more gamed, things swing wild. They get unpredictable, and in the end, you find that you can't take care of yourself in the way that you thought you could.
If that does become the case, it's not going to matter if you gamed the patent system. Nor will it matter if you fought changes, or fought for changes that seemed to make sense to you.
If you're a engineer or a medical doctor, what will most likely matter, is whether or not you know how to dig ditches. Or repair shoes. I've seen it happen in Lithuania (the former USSR), and I don't doubt it can happen here.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's