The Real Problem With the US Patent System

Pachooka-san writes "An article in the Washington Post touches on the 'real' patent problem — the quotas that Patent Examiners must meet. They have no effective quality standards, only production standards, so many applications get only cursory review just so the PE can keep up the grueling pace. The USPTO is the only government agency that can and does lay you off if your productivity drops below 85% of the standard for your civil service grade. A Primary PE has to process 5 new and 5 old applications every 2 weeks (that's 8 hours each, folks). The best part — that 28-box application mentioned in the article? — it gets the PE the same credit as the smallest application. How many of those 28 boxes do you think even got opened?"

Comments

Re:The problem? Darned thing is busted, that's wha

[Captain Splendid]

Total, unmitigated bullshit. The responsibility is joint and several and lawyers washing their hands of their responsibility is a large part of the problem. Or to put it another way "I was only following orders" went out as an excuse a very long time ago.

The shit that gets modded insightful on /. these days. Not to mention reading my fucking post where I broke it down for you, numbnuts. Of course Lawyers have certain duties and responsibilities, and you have fucking remedies for that. Once again, for the stupid: the system is broken, fix the system. Ranting at lawyers isn't going to get shit done for you.

The current bullshit IP rush is driven almost entirely by and for lawyers,

And you know why? Because the lawyers looked at the case, ran the numbers, and saw that it was viable. One last time: if it's a viable case, then the problem is the laws on the books that allows that viability in the first place.

Re:my patent took eight years

[nagora]

My university will pay for the lawyer fees to file the patent,

Well, for starters, your "university" should have been releasing the invention to the public, not locking it up in a patent. Basically, any "university" that supports patents is undeserving of the name.

Yeah, yeah - I know. Universities are for making money, not improving the human condidition. Heard it all before.

You want to get paid for inventing things? go and work in industry. You want to be paid for teaching? then don't tell us what we can and can't do with the knowledge you impart.

TWW