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EU Patent Staff Go On Strike
h4rm0ny writes "Last Friday, staff at the European Patent Office went on strike. They protested outside for several hours and issued a statement claiming that 'the organisation is decentralising and focusing on granting as many patents as possible to gain financially from fees generated.' They also declared this as being disastrous for innovation and that their campaign was not for better wages, but for better quality patents.
Meanwhile, an article on it discusses the US's own approach to dealing with the increasing flood of patent applications: a community patent project to help identify prior art. It might sound like a grass-roots scheme, and maybe it is, but those roots include such patent behemoths as IBM. So it looks like on both sides of the Atlantic, some signs of sanity might be emerging in the patent world from those people right in the thick of it." Note, this was a half-day strike, not ongoing.
I've posted on this before. The US program is designed to give the illusion that the patent office is really and truly trying to reform while in reality nothing changes. I'm too lazy to look up the last article on Slashdot about the US project, but if you crunch the numbers it's clear that fewer than 1% of submitted patents are even eligible for the program at all. A handful of patents will be rejected because of it, yes, but by and large the US patent office continues its work to let businesses patent everything possible.
Got to admit, it's kind of impressive to see a strike/demonstration for the right to do a quality job, as opposed to the usual wages/hours stuff.
Patent agent here.
An abstract is a requirement. An applicant has to provide one. If there is something wrong in the application and correct in the abstract, the applicant is not allowed to rely on the abstract to fix the error in the application. Guess what, patent agents spend as little time on the abstract as possible. Personaly, I appreciate clear abstracts, so I may tend to do a bit better than average, but still it isn't at the top of my priority list. Having said that, I never propose a drawing to go with the abstract, as that involves more work (providing reference numerals etc.). Sincere apologies to the rest of the world. During the PCT phase, the Examiner often picks one, and adds the numbers. Thanks.
As to clarity of the application. Unfortunately stupid US case law (which stupid people from a country that shall not be named defend, because doing otherwise would be probably considered unpatriotic, or something) favours unclarity and incompleteness. (It is like that famous: "Everything you say can and will be held against you?". ). A US patent claim is like a bag of loose wrist watch parts. A (proper) European claim details the relationship between the parts. Such a claim is harder to write, and leads in the US to more problems. Guess what US patent agents do?
There are even courses for European patent agent to learn how to write obfuscated claims for the US. I refuse to give in, and try to write my claims as clear as possible. The patent system is a deal between society and an inventor, where the inventor reveals his invention in return for an exclusive right for a limited-time. I make this clear to my clients and the invention is written down with that in mind.
If my sticking to clarity means I overlook something and it falls outside the scope of protection, too bad. I hope my approach protects my clients from unnecessary lawsuits where they have to prove that something is within the scope of their poorly-written claim or some scumbag thinks he can reason himself out of the scope. So far, no lawsuits (I don't want to imply that all my claims were so well drafted to have had this effect. Perhaps I - and my clients - were just fortunate).
Bert
Examples of silly US things:
If you describe an experiment in past tense, you have performed it. If you write it in present tense, you haven't. Uhm, how does this writing in present tense undo the fact that an applicant actually performed the experiments, again?
If you discuss literature, you admit that it is prior art. Well, everything before the filing date is prior art, isn't it, so what is the problem? Oh, you mean relevant prior art limiting the scope of my claims? Well, what I write and read in a particular publication KNOWING THE INVENTION OF MY CLIENT isn't necessarily the same as what a person skilled in the art at the time of filing would read in that publication. In the US, you have conceded that it is known. In Europe, you can get back from what you said earlier (if there is a fair reason for that). In Europe: If I said that I saw Jesus yesterday, and today I say I was mistaken, it is OK if now stick to the latter. In the US it is solid legal proof that Jesus was here yesterday. Sigh.