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Lawyer Loses It In Letter To Patent Office
bizwriter writes "Nobody would ever say that the world of patent law is a roller coaster of excitement but every now and then something interesting happens. Take this attorney who was angry over a patent examiner's rejection of his client's application. Here are a few snippets from the lawyers letter to the examiner: 'Are you drunk? No, seriously... are you drinking scotch and whiskey with a side of crack cocaine while you "examine" patent applications? (Heavy emphasis on the quotes.) Do you just mail merge rejection letters from your home? Is that what taxpayers are getting in exchange for your services? Have you even read the patent application? I'm curious. Because you either haven't read the patent application or are... (I don't want to say the "R" word) "Special."....Your job is not a joke, but you are turning it into a regular three ring circus. If you can't motivate yourself to take your job seriously, then you need to quit and let someone else take over what that actually wants to do the job right.'"
Of course! Insulting the US patent office is a known technique to guarantee your submission will be calmly and objectively reviewed. Do it now.
would react. Seriously, who these lawyers think they are ? God incarnate ?
It would amusing to pick it apart and see how much prior art and how many ridiculous claims it contained.
To be shortly followed by a letter of apology from said patent attorney, whose business shall immediately take a dive.
*grabs popcorn and waits for rebuttal letter* Considering the rates of acceptance is going up, I think the problem with the patent "industry" is the expectation that any application should just get accepted and dealt with in courts later.
He should be disbarred for giving lawyers a bad name (yes, that's possible...)
No sig today...
A tripod sprinkler. Seriously, a tripod sprinkler with telescopic legs.
I agree with the patent office worker in this case, maybe the lawyer should try and patent a method of getting a patent application rejected, consisting of plurality of idiotic patent application and an angry letter by the said lawyer to the patent office.
MY OTHER COMMENTS
Guess who's never getting a patent approved again, *ever*?
"Carreon Up the Khyber", indeed.
"Be nice, veer left, and never stop thinking" Iain Banks - Walking On Glass
with all the horrible patents coming around today, automatically rejecting everything would be a boon for society in general.
Seriously, he's a lawyer, in what particular does he think the rejection is wrong?
The nearest thing to a substantive accusation is that the examiner is simply rejecting the application because he's lazy and that's easy. But it's my understanding that, in fact, patent examiners face a lot of pressure to approve applications, which is faster and easier than rejection, because it takes less effort to justify approval, and because approvals don't generally get appealed by the applicant. So while I am sure laziness afflicts patent examiners from time to time, it's not obvious that this is an example.
As for "doing his job", his job is not to approve applications, it's to examine them and make a determination. Rejection is one possible outcome, and is not by itself proof that the job wasn't done.
So, yeah, faceless bureaucrats are lazy and stupid, ha ha. Tell me again what problem you solved by making this assertion?
2*3*3*3*3*11*251
Just be glad you don't have to pay a license fee for that technique. See, this lawyer tried to patent it, but...
"It's just the bad 95% of us that give the rest a bad name" -- Ray Beckerman (quoted from memory, might be inexact)
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Strange, somehow I would have expected such a rant after seeing some of the idiotics patents that have been approved. It's somehow even more disheartening to find that the rant is in regards to an apparently non-unique patent being rejected (as it should be).
...is entirely possible. For the last several years, the U.S. Patent Office has been moving to a distributed model where comparatively few patent examiners live in the D.C. area except during their initial training period. I know two patent examiners, and both live in Ohio. In any case, this text-hissy-fit likely did no favors for the lawyer or their client.
"My life's work has been to prompt others... and be forgotten." --Cyrano de Bergerac
I am amazed at how many Slashdotters fell for this story. The part that made it obviously fake was when the patent office rejected an application.Try to be a bit more discerning Slashdot.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
If this letter generates enough static around the patent situation (and I tend to agree, in general, with the spirit of the letter) then maybe it was a brilliant ploy on the lawyers part to drag the issues out into prime time news feeds using drama as the winch. Sometimes any exposure to a corrupt problem is better than none at all.
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The USPTO seems to be insulting itself worse. I'd rather everyone know I was drunk and on coke than everyone know I was a useless rubber stamp, enabling patent trolls to leech off of society.
First rejections are so common there is a theory that examiners are motivated to automatically reject patent applications the first time they review them. The theory goes like this:
Patent examiners are on a quota point system. They have to accumulate so many points for an acceptable performance rating. They get points for all sorts of activity. But one of the most visible ones is an office action.
So they could get a point for approving a patent. Do the work, get a point, move on to the next patent.
But they also get points each time they reject a patent. Naturally the inventor will file a response to the rejection. The examiner can now earn another point by responding to a patent he or she has already invested time reviewing and is familiar with.
This can go on several times until a statutory limit requires a final decision. Once they approve a patent or give a final rejection, the stream of points for that file ends.
So there is an incentive to find a trivial reason for initial rejection, especially if there is a chance it can be overcome. That just leads to a chance for a second rejection.
I don't know how true the theory is, but if you're trying to explain to yourself why you got a dumb rejection, it makes as much sense as anything else.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
Probably misquoted as well, but I always liked, "It's just some of the lawyers out there that give a really bad name to the other three."
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
* Lawyer: "Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?"
* Witness: "No."
* Lawyer: "Did you check for blood pressure?"
* Witness: "No."
* Lawyer: "Did you check for breathing?"
* Witness: "No."
* Lawyer: "So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?"
* Witness: "No."
* Lawyer: "How can you be so sure, Doctor?"
* Witness: "Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar."
* Lawyer: "But could the patient have still been alive nevertheless?"
* Witness: "Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law somewhere."
You can never know everything, and part of what you do know will always be wrong. Perhaps even the most important part.
Given that the patent office is self-funded, and rejections only make more time-consuming work, it'd be silly for some Machiavellian Patent Office executive to hand out incentives for rejecting patents.
In many cases the age is the salient factor....a given action from a 2yo is cute or precocious, but from a 5yo is just normal and from a 15yo is babyish. So the age is critically important, while the sex of the child is not relevant.
Also, given that it's not relevant, I think it's entirely reasonable to keep the gender of one's children a private affair rather than post it on the internet for all to see. I may not always do it myself, but it's still reasonable.
He should be disbarred for giving lawyers a bad name (yes, that's possible...)
Should someone who sends a snarky email to their boss once never be able to work with computers again?
Disbarring is taking away someone's profession, and a good part of the value of their entire education. A single stupid decision, other than perhaps something like intentionally stealing from clients, should almost never result in disbarment.
Of course! Insulting the US patent office is a known technique to guarantee your submission will be calmly and objectively reviewed. Do it now.
It always works for me at restaurants...
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
I'm going to steal and then patent this idea of insulting the patent office to get your patents approved. Well played.
I for one completely understand the rage. I think I was assigned this examiner - some of the things done must have been very similar to what he describes. It enraged my otherwise calm, quiet reserved patent attorney to the point he had to wait a week before responding or it would have been in much the same way. This poor bastard just didn't wait the week.
Depending on the nature of the injury, sometimes the brain comes out before the autopsy begins and they just try to send in all the pieces they could find. Car accidents, shootings (I've heard of a shotgun to the face leaving a hole big enough for a brain to fall out), blunt force trauma - there's all kinds of ways to crack a brain out of a skull.
I for one completely understand the rage.... It enraged my otherwise calm, quiet reserved patent attorney...
Perhaps it's time that patent lawyers got used to having patents rejected if they think that putting a sprinkler on a tripod is patent-worthy. I've no idea whether rejecting this patent was legal but, given the available details, common sense indicates that it should not be. Of course the law has no regard for common sense but still it is refreshing to see at least one stupid patent getting rejected.
There's an old legal saying that if the facts are against you, you should hammer the law; if the law is against you, you should hammer the facts; and if both are against you, you should hammer on the table. Since this guy doesn't cite any particular laws or facts to defend his position, he's apparently resorting to hammering on the table.
"In the final rejection, Examiner Valvis found the claim 1 unpatentable over Richey (U.S. Patent No. 2,694,600) in view of Nies (U.S. Pub. No. 2009/0230206) and in further view of Harward (U.S. Patent No. 4,824,020) and claim 2 unpatentable in further view of Ward (U.S. Patent No. 5,484,154)."
From http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2013/04/dont-write-this-letter-to-the-patent-office.html linked from TFA.
There are some patents that merit acceptance. They are characterized by substantial up front investment more than by innovative brillance. Given the current population there is sufficient brilliance around that it's not in short supply. Diciplined foregoing investment of time and money is scarcer, and that's what needs protection. So I'll grant that 95+ percent of the patents that were granted should have been rejected, but not all of them...unless you invent an alternative approach.
OTOH, I'm not sure that even with proper patent examination the current system could be made to work, as it depends on lawyers and the court system for enforcement. But that's a separate argument.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Actually, he is pissed because he took the Patent on contingency and it was rejected, and now he isn't getting paid. Just a guess.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
In a professional context, you should behave professionally or you're not very professional. This doesn't mean you should take everything lying down, but acting like a total ass is definitely not something you should do.
I for one completely understand the rage. I think I was assigned this examiner - some of the things done must have been very similar to what he describes. It enraged my otherwise calm, quiet reserved patent attorney to the point he had to wait a week before responding or it would have been in much the same way. This poor bastard just didn't wait the week.
or didn't call the examiner's supervisor. The supervisor's name and phone number are provided with every official notice that explains a rejection. And there is more than one option to appeal and get the Examiner's reasoning reviewed by people with higher pay-grades.
Full-blown appeals are admittedly expensive, but are far more worthwhile than raving and ranting like an unprofessional. Such rants will simply be ignored at best, or (at worst) circulated around the Patent Office as an example of a bad patent attorney to watch out for. And the inventor/applicant? On the hook for attorney fees, regardless.
Take it easy, Charlie, I've got an Angle...
It is a breach of professionalism, and enough that a client should almost always fire you, but there's a huge gap between that and making it impossible for you to work in the field ever again. Like the difference between your boss firing you and the entire industry collectively deciding you can't do any work, even tech support for your mother.
Well, that depends on the jurisdiction technically.
E.g. prosecutors in Austria need to fulfill the requirements that judges need, both career path do not involve being a lawyer. Germany OTOH, has basically one generic exam for the classical legal career paths.
I looked at the application in question and it appears to have been rejected for very good cause. Does it enrage you that you are not allowed to patent old things that many other people are already doing?
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
There's an old, probably ancient stress relief technique where you write a nasty letter but never send it.
Abraham Lincoln practiced it - they found scathing nasty letters after his death addressed to various generals during the war that were never sent.
Occasionally, one gets sent out by mistake...
I don't read AC A human right
"When lawyers take Viagra they get taller ..."
- Bowser and Blue
That's a joke, not something that actually happened.
It is apparently from a book called "Disorder in the Court: Great Fractured Moments in Courtroom History".
Blurb reads: "Sit back and enjoy a collection of verbatim exchanges from the halls of justice, where defendants and plaintiffs, lawyers and witnesses, juries and judges, collide to produce memorably insane comedy."
So it is likely a true record of the exchange.
Also because the brain is removed during the autopsy, so it doesn't even make any sense.
As someone else posted, there are many reasons the brain can arrive separate to the body in an autopsy, so that part at least does make sense.
You can never know everything, and part of what you do know will always be wrong. Perhaps even the most important part.