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The U.S. Patent Backlog
coondoggie writes "Even with its increased hiring estimates of 1,200 patent examiners each year for the next 5 years, the US Patent and Trademark Office patent application backlog is expected to increase to over 1.3 million at the end of fiscal year 2011 the Government Accounting Office reported today. The USPTO has also estimated that if it were able to hire 2,000 patent examiners per year in fiscal year 2007 and each of the next 5 years, the backlog would continue to increase by about 260,000 applications, to 953,643 at the end of fiscal year 2011, the GAO said. Despite its recent increases in hiring, the agency has acknowledged that it cannot hire its way out of the backlog and is now focused on slowing the growth of the backlog instead of reducing it. This too is but one of the goals of the Patent Reform Act currently making the rounds in the US Senate."
There is a built in incentive for bad patents to get through. Patents get rubber stamped simply because of the need of efficiency to get out of the whole backlog mess. Instead of actually diligently checking and rechecking for prior art conflicting patents, the employee stamps it as good, as fast as possible, and walks away with their 10% bonus. This seems to be the same problem that tech support has with call tracking. The faster a person gets you off the phone, the more money they make, and the faster they get promoted.
Honestly, taking any existing patent and tossing it on the internet should be tossed immediately as obvious.
Knock out software patents, and patents on processes, and blamo! problem solved.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Far easier...
Deny any patent with the words, "A method to..."
Problem solved. I bet the backlog drops by at least 3/4 what it is today.
This is a sig. This is only a sig. Had this been an actual sig you would have been informed where to tune for more sigs.
Is that what it's going to come down too[sic]? Unfortunately, yes. Since job performance is entirely based on number of applications processed, the examiners have very little incentive to do a good job, so unless they have a clear reason to reject an application in the first 5-10 pages, they'll likely just grant it. The problem then REALLY comes when the judicial branch says, "the patent office granted it, so if it's not patentable they can sort it out," which is what they have been doing for some time now. That's part of the reason it's so difficult to get a patent overturned: both branches say the other should do it.
In principle, not evil at all. The idea is that the government will grant you a limited time monopoly on your invention, provided you document everything so that once your time is up, anyone can create and improve on the idea. This is in contrast to trade secrets, where you get to keep your invention for as long as you can keep it a secret.
(As a side note, the NSA has cheated this system, where some of their algorithms are currently a trade secret, and will suddenly become a patent if they're ever revealed).
The system today has severe implementation flaws, but the idea behind it is brilliant.
Not a typewriter
> There is a built in incentive for bad patents to get through.
Looking at this job I am almost tempted to apply. The money is good even without the bonus. It would be interesting and varied work. And one would be in fine company, as Mr Einstein himself was once a patent clerk.
But I would last all of 5 minutes before getting fired. The problem is as computer scientist and inventor and someone who knows the difference between an abstract idea and well thought out and unique implementation that solves original problems I would have to apply ethical standards to my work.
Got a business patent? In the bin it goes.
Got an existing idea you want to add the words "web browser" or "computer" to? In the bin.
Only got mathematical algorithm? No language specific implementation? In the bin.
You want to add a tiny specific modification to an existing idea? Sorry, in the the bin.
Something that I can find published on Google with trivial searching? In the bin.
Well, you might think my manager would be happy as a pig in shit, praising a wonderful worker who is clearing the backlog by rigorously applying the rules. Wouldn't you?
Oh, but wait... Where does the patent office make its money? Approving patents.
Which is why the rules were changed to allow all this crap through in the first place. There aren't suddenly more ideas in the world, the bar for patentability has been drastically lowered and the system is broken because of it.
So, how about this for an idea. If he approves a patent that is subsequently challenged and voided the clerk loses twice their bonus and the patent office has to refund the application fee in full. And to make sure the applicant doesn't benefit from specious claims, they must pay a fine of 10 times the application fee to the government.
Then let's see who is so quick with the rubber stamp.
What is needed is incentive to find _good_ patents. To add this incentive, how about a royalty type bonus system. A clerk who approves a patent that runs its full term gets a small bonus at the end of its life, related to how much money it has actually made through the sale of real products (litigation payments would be excluded).
Why do people speak as if the founding fathers were infallible? Not that I don't agree with your points. I would add medical patents to that list though, at least for non Viagra type medicines.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
What is WITH this founding fathers cult? Can't you trust logic and argumentation, must you invoke a bunch of ancients as some kind of semi-divine authority to back your opinions up?
Step 1: Hire more patent officers.
Step 2: Raise the price of applying to meet costs of #1.
Step 3: Once backlog is clear create stricter application process.
Step 4: Based on number of man hours required for new process introduced in 3, raise prices again.
Step 5: Review demand now that it costs more and is less likely to success; adust staffing to meet new demand.
When the outsiders start to notice quality problems ( as has happened in the last few years)the response has been to increase "quality review" and orders to reject more and more, even if prior art references are crap, rather do anything to relax the production pressure wich might result in the finidng of better prior art and more thorough rejection of features tht might slip through. The result of this is that management has painted itself in a corner; if they relax goals, the backlog will increase even more, but if they are maintained or even increased the hemorrhage of new hires will similarly increase. There is just no quick fix out of this. Any substantive change will require a stark change in management culture. Good luck with that.
Just patents made sense 200 years ago, doesn't mean they made sense today. For instance, having a patent valid for 17 years used to make sense because it would probably take that long before your invention had adequate market penetration. However products don't even last 17 years anymore before the company, or inventor moves on to something else. 17 years seems like a really long time in our fast paced society. The world wide web wasn't even something most of the public knew about 17 years ago.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.