Fellow guitar player who has also geeked out over the possibility of better interconnects (not that there's much out there right now). What were you envisioning doing with this?
Err, there is some truth in that in a roundabout way. Though some of those facts are backwards. I don't have the stats handy unfortunately, and no time to dig them up. But as I understand it (grain of salt, IANAPPAY: I am not a practicing patent attorney yet):
>Almost no utility patent is granted straight away—it takes a series of office actions == non-final rejections, under 35 USC 101, 102, 103, 112, etc. There are often quite a few office actions before a patent gets issued, if it gets issued at all.
>The patent examiner's job not to get patents out to hungry corps, it's to make sure a patent should validly issue over the prior art (and meets other reqs like WD, best mode, etc.). You could say that makes it the examiner's job to help companies craft the right language for their claims, but only in the sense that they tell the applicant, "No, you can't claim 'Widget A doing X' because that's in the prior art."
>It is then the applicant's job to rewrite the claim to say, "OK examiner, how about, 'Widget A with limitation B doing X.'" This office action rewriting process goes on (and on, and on, have you ever heard a patent attorney complain about all the rejections they get?). This is probably the tweaking process you're talking about, and that's how it is supposed to work. The alternative would be for applicants to spend a bunch of time and money drafting a patent app and then when the PTO doesn't like it, say, "Start over, and write it better this time."
>IIRC, patent examiners get brownie points for issuing office actions. Yes, they are backlogged, but the Guidance from above is not to just let crappo patents issue because they have too much to do. See the latest, very strict, guidance on bio/DNA stuff post-Myriad, that will probably get smacked down in the Federal Circuit for being too strict.
>I don't know all the details of the prosecution process of TFA Amazon patent, but you can find out for yourself. A quick glance tells me there was at least one rejection and amendment to this patent.
What is this? A bootcamp for ants? How can we be expected to teach children to learn how to code if they can't even fit inside the bootcamp? I don't wanna hear your excuses! The bootcamp has to be at least... eight times bigger than this!
I completely agree with the sentiment that IP laws (laws in general!) should be much simpler. There's two problems with your argument, though. First, some areas of law are necessarily so complex that only a tiny fraction of lawyers and judges (let alone laypersons) are competent to handle them. I would not trust a constitutional law guru to handle corporate bankruptcy, nor a brilliant civil rights litigator to draft a patent on synthetic DNA.
Second and more importantly, there's nothing "select" about who can know and understand these laws. Anyone who wants to become well-versed in the vagaries of US IP laws can do any or all of the following:
1) Readtheactuallaws
2) Pick up a book that will aid you in understanding IP law (no quality guarantees there, I just googled "understanding IP law" and this is the first thing that popped up)
3) Go watch some YouTube videos that explain, for instance, design patent law or the concept of trade dress (again, no quality guarantees, just showing there's tons of content out there)
4) Go to law school and take some IP courses (I don't recommend this if all you want is a passing understanding of IP law)
5) Ask NYCL himself to explain the issue to you
Unlike some of the scientific content discussed here on/. (esp. things like QM and particle physics), IP laws are not particularly hard to grok for the average person—with a little effort and a helpful search engine. Stop me if I'm stabbing a scarecrow here, but I think you might be confusing "IP laws shouldn't be unreasonably complex" with "IP laws should be intuitive enough that people don't even have to look them up".
Slashdot Mirror
Burma Shave?
Undoing misclicked downmod-- this is actually spot on insightful.
I wish all my company's sales would fall from 7% to over 25%. Curse you NSA, and curse the 350% increase in sales you've unleashed upon me!
I always favor the perspective that the user knows what they want.
I take it you're not the lead developer of iOS...
Fellow guitar player who has also geeked out over the possibility of better interconnects (not that there's much out there right now). What were you envisioning doing with this?
Err, there is some truth in that in a roundabout way. Though some of those facts are backwards. I don't have the stats handy unfortunately, and no time to dig them up. But as I understand it (grain of salt, IANAPPAY: I am not a practicing patent attorney yet):
>Almost no utility patent is granted straight away—it takes a series of office actions == non-final rejections, under 35 USC 101, 102, 103, 112, etc. There are often quite a few office actions before a patent gets issued, if it gets issued at all.
>The patent examiner's job not to get patents out to hungry corps, it's to make sure a patent should validly issue over the prior art (and meets other reqs like WD, best mode, etc.). You could say that makes it the examiner's job to help companies craft the right language for their claims, but only in the sense that they tell the applicant, "No, you can't claim 'Widget A doing X' because that's in the prior art."
>It is then the applicant's job to rewrite the claim to say, "OK examiner, how about, 'Widget A with limitation B doing X.'" This office action rewriting process goes on (and on, and on, have you ever heard a patent attorney complain about all the rejections they get?). This is probably the tweaking process you're talking about, and that's how it is supposed to work. The alternative would be for applicants to spend a bunch of time and money drafting a patent app and then when the PTO doesn't like it, say, "Start over, and write it better this time."
>IIRC, patent examiners get brownie points for issuing office actions. Yes, they are backlogged, but the Guidance from above is not to just let crappo patents issue because they have too much to do. See the latest, very strict, guidance on bio/DNA stuff post-Myriad, that will probably get smacked down in the Federal Circuit for being too strict.
>I don't know all the details of the prosecution process of TFA Amazon patent, but you can find out for yourself. A quick glance tells me there was at least one rejection and amendment to this patent.
Sentence structure!
Stanford Getting Rid of $18 Billion Endowment of Coal Stock
!=
Stanford Getting Rid of [the] Coal Stock [in its] $18 Billion Endowment
!=
Stanford Getting $18 Billion [in] Coal Stock Rid[den in on the Pony Express]
!=
Stanford Getting $18 Billion of Coal [in its] Stock[ings]
But in our universe, TANSTAAFL.
There's A Not-So-Tantalizing Air About Florida?
What is this? A bootcamp for ants? How can we be expected to teach children to learn how to code if they can't even fit inside the bootcamp? I don't wanna hear your excuses! The bootcamp has to be at least... eight times bigger than this!
8 miles is not far. It is not too hard to envisage a disaster that could affect both sites at once.
This is an excellent point. I recommend they move the second site to Google, Kansas.
First paste [to fix your busted liver]!
I completely agree with the sentiment that IP laws (laws in general!) should be much simpler. There's two problems with your argument, though. First, some areas of law are necessarily so complex that only a tiny fraction of lawyers and judges (let alone laypersons) are competent to handle them. I would not trust a constitutional law guru to handle corporate bankruptcy, nor a brilliant civil rights litigator to draft a patent on synthetic DNA.
/. (esp. things like QM and particle physics), IP laws are not particularly hard to grok for the average person—with a little effort and a helpful search engine. Stop me if I'm stabbing a scarecrow here, but I think you might be confusing "IP laws shouldn't be unreasonably complex" with "IP laws should be intuitive enough that people don't even have to look them up".
Second and more importantly, there's nothing "select" about who can know and understand these laws. Anyone who wants to become well-versed in the vagaries of US IP laws can do any or all of the following:
1) Read the actual laws
2) Pick up a book that will aid you in understanding IP law (no quality guarantees there, I just googled "understanding IP law" and this is the first thing that popped up)
3) Go watch some YouTube videos that explain, for instance, design patent law or the concept of trade dress (again, no quality guarantees, just showing there's tons of content out there)
4) Go to law school and take some IP courses (I don't recommend this if all you want is a passing understanding of IP law)
5) Ask NYCL himself to explain the issue to you
Unlike some of the scientific content discussed here on
...which is why, son, your dink
is neanderthal pink.
--flop