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USPTO's 1-Click Indecisiveness Enters 5th Year
theodp writes "When it comes to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' 1-Click patent, the USPTO is an agency that just can't say no. Or yes. It's now been 4+ years since actor Peter Calveley submitted prior art that triggered a USPTO reexamination of the 1-Click patent. Still no 'final answer' from the USPTO, although an Examiner recently issued yet another Final Rejection of 1-Click related claims (pdf), admonishing Amazon for making him 'sift through hundreds of submitted references to identify what applicant allegedly has already submitted,' which he complained is 'adding an undue burden' to his workload. Looks like Bezos' 2000 pledge of 'less work for the overworked Patent and Trademark Office' isn't working out so well in practice. Not too surprising — after all, Amazon did inform Congress that it 'has modified its specific [patent] reform proposals from the year 2000.'"
USPTO is waiting on Bilski. It will come soon and state whether a business method (and not software as is commonly said) is valid. USPTO doesn't want to have to re-decide this afterward, and only if business method patents are approved of will it get approved.
I would say this is in direct disagreement with your previous statement.
Congress typically passes vague laws so that the responsibility of the effect of the law is lessened or more easily deflected.
It is up to the courts to reject laws as too vague and require them to have more specificity.
Laws would be much less absurd if they left no room for interpretation. #1 this would lead to a fear in passing laws and #2 this would reduce their breadth