Since when did the Constitution say that the government was supposed to favor one business over another? The United States is capitalist, if the brick and mortor stores can't compete with the internet, then they can't compete. Let them fade away just like the horse and buggy. It's the future; you should embrace it.
In my opinion, that ended (if it wasn't already over) when the American president, a candidate of the Republican party which supposedly contrasts the more socialist Democrats, told American citizens that buying identical pharmaceuticals for a lower price in Canada was scary, dangerous, and bad. Apparently, we're only interested in "free market" as a slogan. We're really in favor of corporate profits in spite of the quality of life for the average citizen declining.
I wish this didn't sound like a Democratic rant. I'd love to see a Republican candidate in 2008 who actually stands for what the Republican party supposedly represents.
Regarding your trip to your parents' house, I think you make it sound worse than it is. Say you're spending 8 hours in the car rather than 11 hours on mass transit. But if you assume that half that time can be spent in productive ways that a car doesn't allow (reading, etc) then suddenly mass transit is competitive again.
Look, I'd love to have mass transit all over the US more than anybody. You propose a feasible system that will get me from the DC area 300 miles away to Martinsville, VA (population: more cows than people) where my girlfriend lives (and the 9,000 other Martinsvilles within 300 miles of DC) and we're talking.
Mass transit WITHIN major American cities is a good idea. Mass transit across the American countryside would be ridiculous. I don't know for a fact, but I don't think Siberia has mass transit running to every little village either. Warm Siberia up, upgrade the villages to towns, and you have a good idea of how densely America is really populated outside of urban centers.
Believe it or not, in Japan and European countries where mass transit is the norm, there are still rural areas. If you were planning to commute across a major metropolitan area, you would first drive (or ride your bike) to a mass transit station outside of that area, park your car, and ride to your destination.
Not sure where you're posting from, but I have lived in places where there was not another town for 30 miles, and I live in the eastern US. While we could probably work out a nice rail system in those areas, I doubt we could work out a nice commuter rail system in those areas, unless absolutely everyone in one town worked in the next town over.
wasn't the robot road project cancelled in the US for exactly that reason, depite the fact that they can make robot cars/roads safer than most current human drivers, there is the whole problem of blame in the case of failure.
Yes, in the US you couldn't patent a "black box" that produces antigravity either, I was pretending for discussion's sake.
A product by process claim is where you invent a new process - a marvelous new manufacturing method to produce a composite hockey stick. Your method of manufacturing is patentable, and your hockey stick is also patentable (assuming it's different from prior art, etc.) I don't know about the EPO, but in the US an applicant is therefore allowed to define his new hockey stick according to the process by which it is made - the product by process claim.
This doesn't grant any new patenting concepts, since the product would be subject to patenting all by itself. It does introduce some interesting rules for prior art, however. For prior art to teach a product by process, it merely needs to be "substantially identical". While a wooden hockey stick would be quite different than a composite hockey stick, a plausible argument exists that they are "substantially identical", but only until the applicant argues that his composite construction actually enhances the thing's usefulness as a hockey stick. On the infringement side, it enables the patent holder to sue people for using his process as well as manufacturing "substantially identical" hockey sticks - but remember that this is defined before the patent is issued as NOT a hockey stick that is "substantially equal" to the prior art. It's basically a shortcut to patenting the actual, specific hockey stick itself by defining it according to the process that makes it.
The result is that you could have TWO different processes of making a composite hockey stick - process A protected by patent A and process B protected by patent B. The two processes are perfectly free from infringing each other. However, if they produce the same hockey stick, and patent A claims the hockey stick in a product by process claim, then the assignee of patent B must still license the final product from the assignee of patent A.
True, however antigravity produced by a black box is not a "business outcome".
If I invent a patented black box that makes something lighter than air and you invent a patented black box that reduces the effects of gravity and the effect on a given object is exactly the same, our patents do not infringe.
And this is false. The concept is called "product by process" as I mentioned previously. If Patent A issues before Patent B, and A has a "antigravity produced by means of a black box", then Patent B cannot claim patent protection for its antigravity unless B's applicant proves that his antigravity is not "substantially identical" to that produced by A. If B fails to do so, then B has a patentable process (or black box apparatus) which produces a product patented by A. Using B's invention infringes on A's product by process claim.
This only comes into play if A has a "product by process" claim, however any competent attorney would throw one in on the first attempt.
Before asserting what the "stated objectives of the USPTO" are, I encourage you to study what 35 U.S.C. say. The USPTO's objectives are to examine patents according to the law - nothing more, nothing less. The law says that an article of manufacture (product), an apparatus (machine), a process, a composition of material, or an improvement of any of those 4 are patentable. Case law supports the concept of "product by process". You can have two patented machines or processes which produce "substantially identical" products - only one patent can properly claim protection for the product.
Patents are a license to sue. They are designed as licenses to sue. They grant the assignee a temporary monopoly should he/she/it choose to enforce it and they grant a source of revenue should he/she/it choose to license it.
If you have two black boxes and both produce anti-gravity but by different means, one may infringe upon the other. This example would likely fall under a "product by process" claim, and the burden would fall on the inventor of the second product to prove that his antigravity is patentably distinct from the first antigravity, if the first black box is patented with a product by process claim. In distilled form, the rules regarding prior art for product by process claims during prosecution of a patent application state that (in this case) antigravity which is "substantially identical" to antigravity produced by a different process is prior art and the second invention's antigravity is NOT patentably different from the prior art.
Now, if we stay away from patenting the antigravity itself (and therefore away from a product by process claim) you could easily have to patentable devices for producing antigravity.
And, for discussion's sake, I'm pretending that antigravity is patentable.;)
No offense to the original poster, but the fact that it was modded so highly informative ought to make some people (some with mod points, some without) think about how informed the Slashdot crowd really is about the patent system. Again I reiterate - no offense to the original poster.
Maybe your absorbtion in the industry has resigned you to its current disarray, but I'm optimistic enough to offer possible solutions.
Or maybe submitting models is simply a bad solution because it would exacerbate the problem by creating an entirely new logistical crisis as a fake solution to an unrelated problem that should be solved directly.
Look, if you think that "nondevices" shouldn't be patentable, find a judge who agrees and produce the case law. Problem solved. It wouldn't require the millions of dollars spent to house them, it wouldn't burden the applicants with submitting them, it wouldn't burden the examiners with screwing around with models (who the hell is qualified to "examine" a model? What in hell would that even mean, legally?), and it wouldn't allow the attorneys to require the models is evidence of prior art (and you really haven't addressed this appropriately. Merely asserting that "something could be done" is laughable. Burden of proof on one side become burden of proof on the other.)
I wonder how government spending gets out of control? Hm, I dunno, maybe it's stuff like extravagent and superfluous "solutions" that only address the actual problem tangentially? Just a thought. This idea that I'm all "absorbed" in the industry while you're the clever genius who has solved the whole problem is absurd. Flip that coin over - I probably have a far better idea what the problem is than the guy who has spoken with a lawyer a couple of times.
That's hilarious. If someone sells you a diamond for a nickel, you're probably getting what you paid for. If someone AUCTIONS that diamond and you're the highest bidder, you're probably getting what you paid for but consoled by the fact that other morons envy what you got.
A patent is a license to sue. Selling a license to sue is a pretty good indication of how strong the current owners think that license is...
I know about patents - I've been party to the process of several applications, as well as analyzed several of those granted for investors, for over 15 years. That's one reason I can estimate the number of patents that a rational system would process, based on the actual numbers in the current broken system.
Yeah, uh, I've been to the hospital once or twice but I'm not sure how that qualifies me to know how many people are truly sick.
I'm glad you've got some experience with the patent system. I get about 50 hours per week. While I appreciate the sentiment - and the intended results from what you propose - I really don't think requiring models will achieve those ends. How would you patent nanotechnology? Animal husbandry technology (actually quite a large technology - have the examiner sit in a lawnchair until the cattle get it on?) The law STILL says "The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention." (35 USC 112) It's not a model, but it's the next best thing. There are SO many logistic problems with models that it's really not a reasonable solution.
I'd hazard a guess that most of those 350K applications are "inventions" that won't ever see a working model,
Fair enough.
Now we're probably talking about 100K applications per year - probably really less than 50K if the model is examined only after all are vetted,
Completely baseless speculation, but whatever - that's par for the course around/.
The 4000 models per month would be examined in by an office in each state (California, New York, Texas and other big states might get multiples), averaging 80 models per month per state. Really large models (like a nuclear power plant) might require a field examiner to visit them. The costs are part of the application fee. Big inventions typically have big potential profits.
Great! As a result, it will be impossible to actually search the prior art since it will be spread all over the country. If you tried to USE the paper documents, all attorneys would immediately say, "Wait wait wait! If you required the model before issuing the patent, I'm going to require that model before acknowledging that it's prior art! If you expect ME to believe your prior art without a model, then why the hell do we have to submit models?" Sweet. The system would grind to a complete halt and we'd have an IP wild west where all competitive advantages are meaningless and he with the most capital will win everything. Utopia can't be far away!
Seriously, you seem to know more about the patent system than the average poster around here, but requiring models is a really poor solution. In cases where models would actually make a difference they are still used - but they're generally delivered by the attorneys & applicants in person. It keeps the system far more sane that way.
How can't you put a company, whose bottom line is profit and cost reduction, in charge of peoples health...it does not work...every day you hear more stories about it not working.
Because we're scared shitless of having nothing. Welcome to the New Old World.
"Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power"
Benito Mussolini (Italian dictator, 1883-1945)
To American slashdotters : this is what you get when you have 45 million uninsured Americans, and yet your nation votes against a candidate that promised universal health coverage in favor of another who chose to limit stem-cell research on religious grounds.
Traitor! We voted for MORAL VALUES which means we remind all gay people that they're nothing but fags, as Jesus taught us!
Eh... sorry to make light of your very serious point. I don't have anything meaningful to add. Sorry.
Regarding the first point, there are many patents which have a broad range of applications.
Life isn't easy. The point is that you're searching in a dozen areas while not searching in thousands. If you're really not up to the task, there are people who work professionally as patent searchers.
Regarding the second point, the fact that the law states the a patent has to be understandable to a person skilled in the art is of little help. The fact is a large percentage are not - I know this from experience.
I read about 100 patents per week on everything from stamping sheet metal to modeling data to database systems to distributed computing. While I'm a little better at reading patents than the average guy, I'm reading them in plenty of technologies where I am not "a person of ordinary skill". My point? They aren't that hard if you go into it with any idea what the topic is. They aren't examined by MENSA, after all. (insert your cheap shot here, if you must)
Regarding the third point, you are correct. Patents are assumed valid until judged otherwise.
It would be extremely unwise to infringe on someone's patent unless you have direct counsel from a confident attorney. Seriously, just think about that one for a moment. If you read it in a patent, you should probably assume (as would anyone outside of a courtroom) that the patent is valid and act accordingly.
Who said anything about amending the Constitution? I said "prior practice" - conservatives (in more than name only) would resist the change away from practical proofs of concepts, the "matter" in the Constitution (if that's how conservative they were). And what's "liberal" about amending the Constitution? The last one I heard of was pretty reactionary.
Alright, fair enough. The "prior practice" was a convention, however, and not law. I know basically nobody around/. gives a shit about the difference between a law and what they read on the internet, but it's not an insignificant point.
By the way, the USPTO receives 350,000 applications per year and has a back log of about 30 months. You figure out how to store, transport, and examine 350,000 models and you probably have a patent application of your own.
Sure, litigation may limit those patents to the actual inventions within, or may even uncover some prior art, but the fact that litigation would be required for that means the system is broken, you don't need to be an expert for that. I must disagree about the 'picking of fights', I pay for the thing to be examined, I invariably recieve a useless weak reply that is easily refuted, hence system is broken.
Sorry, I meant to reply to this as well.
What I assume you are unfamiliar with is the scope of the USPTO's powers and how those powers are defined. The USPTO doesn't really MAKE any decisions about what can or cannot be patented. The USPTO must, at all times, follow the law (made by Congress) and interpretations of the law (made by judges). The case law created by judge's interpretations is a constantly moving target - there patents issued in 1990 that the USPTO would be unable to issue in 2000. There are patents that the USPTO could not stop from being issued in 2004 that would have never issued in 1984. While the USPTO is sensitive to certain problematic areas of patent law, the USPTO cannot directly change the law.
The result? Pick your fights. If you have 1,000 applications that all lean on some minefield of an area, you pick those applications submitted by historically litigious assignees that are basically guaranteed to be appealed all the way to D.C. Federal Court. The other 999 are water under the bridge - they'll be straightened out when and if they are used in court in light of that 1 case that went to D.C. Federal Court. If the USPTO decided to just reject those 1,000 applications, then the USPTO is in the wrong for acting unlawfully.
So you see, the only way to resolve an issue is to pick your fights. That's the law. If you don't like that, you have a problem with the law, not the USPTO. I'm just asking that you understand the system well enough that you actually understand what it is you don't like about it.
I merely claimed that nothing in the USPTO objections I received was ever relevant to the patents' substance, and that that caused the patents applications and hence the granted patents to be overly broad.
The USPTO isn't really charged with challenging the "substance" of the patent. It's charged with challenging the scope of patent protection. You can become a published poet by sticking your poetry in the patent application if you like. The USPTO doesn't care.
Much of the time, they aren't trying to force you to change your claims, either. If they reject your claims, and your attorney argues around it by saying that the prior art and your claims are different things, it's just as good. That argument doesn't get printed on the patent, but if you use that patent in court, you'll find that those arguments are officially in the record and might as well be printed on the patent itself.
I'm not saying that the system is perfect, but by far the largest problem are the rampant misconceptions of what the USPTO is supposed to be doing. That you believe there was no "actual examination" is the strongest evidence that you are, as you say, not an expert. That's not meant as a slight, just an observation. I'm sure you are an expert on the technical matters - you make a living dealing in the technical matters. Being an expert on the legal matters is a completely different profession that requires years of schooling.
I've got all the respect in the world for the guy who says, "This seems crazy to me, but it's not my field. What's the deal?" It's really hard to respect the guy who says, "I briefly watched someone else do their job and everyone involved is a moron."
"Conservatives" would take us back to the prior practice of patenting only "working models". That simple system catapulted the US to the IP forefront, creating value not only in the inventions, but in the patent system that protected them.
I'm curious to hear your response why you would call these people "conservatives". According to what was originally written in the Constitution, "Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title" (35 USC 101). You notice there's nothing in there about a working model, of course. That was a temporary requirement of the Code of Federal Regulations and never required in law.
So I'm just curious - why do you suggest that amending the Constitution is what the "conservatives" would do? It sounds pretty liberal to me.
What you say is true, however let me try to give a helpful response.
You have to know what keywords to search on. It's far easier to search if you use the classification. Rather than hoping you get the right terms, it acts like an index. This alone should narrow down your search to 100-5000 patents, and don't forget they are all cross referenced before being issued and related patents are listed on the front page.
You have to know how to read patents in general. This is no small thing. You have to be able to understand the particular patent you are reading. While this is a problem, the law states that if the patent does not clearly convey to a person of ordinary skill in the art how to make and/or use the invention, it is legally deficient. I'm not making an excuse for all patents, but while 99.9% of the patents may be cryptic, you might be surprised how readable they are when you are "an person of ordinary skill in the art". Again, I'm not excusing all patents.
Even when you have determined that an invention is covered by a patent, is the patent valid? This one is easy. If the patent has not expired or been abandoned, it is valid until a judge says otherwise. All live patents are presumed valid until proven otherwise in court.
Keep business and software patents, but put the burden on the patent holder to prove it's valid (i.e., useful, novel and not obvious) in any subsequent trial or hearing.
You have just proposed the current system. If you sue me with a flimsy patent, I'd be a complete moron to roll over and pay up rather than attack your patent. Come after me and you will end up defending the validity of your patent. That's how the system has always worked, however I don't think the groupthink around/. has ever been particularly interested in the facts about patents. It's much more fun to wave pitchforks, light torches, and do whatever some ridiculously liberal ideologue tells us we should think if we want to be cool like him.;)
Slashdot Mirror
In my opinion, that ended (if it wasn't already over) when the American president, a candidate of the Republican party which supposedly contrasts the more socialist Democrats, told American citizens that buying identical pharmaceuticals for a lower price in Canada was scary, dangerous, and bad. Apparently, we're only interested in "free market" as a slogan. We're really in favor of corporate profits in spite of the quality of life for the average citizen declining.
I wish this didn't sound like a Democratic rant. I'd love to see a Republican candidate in 2008 who actually stands for what the Republican party supposedly represents.
Not that this makes me happy, but let's call it what it is.
Look, I'd love to have mass transit all over the US more than anybody. You propose a feasible system that will get me from the DC area 300 miles away to Martinsville, VA (population: more cows than people) where my girlfriend lives (and the 9,000 other Martinsvilles within 300 miles of DC) and we're talking.
Mass transit WITHIN major American cities is a good idea. Mass transit across the American countryside would be ridiculous. I don't know for a fact, but I don't think Siberia has mass transit running to every little village either. Warm Siberia up, upgrade the villages to towns, and you have a good idea of how densely America is really populated outside of urban centers.
Not sure where you're posting from, but I have lived in places where there was not another town for 30 miles, and I live in the eastern US. While we could probably work out a nice rail system in those areas, I doubt we could work out a nice commuter rail system in those areas, unless absolutely everyone in one town worked in the next town over.
AND E-VOTING IS THE FUTARE!
A product by process claim is where you invent a new process - a marvelous new manufacturing method to produce a composite hockey stick. Your method of manufacturing is patentable, and your hockey stick is also patentable (assuming it's different from prior art, etc.) I don't know about the EPO, but in the US an applicant is therefore allowed to define his new hockey stick according to the process by which it is made - the product by process claim.
This doesn't grant any new patenting concepts, since the product would be subject to patenting all by itself. It does introduce some interesting rules for prior art, however. For prior art to teach a product by process, it merely needs to be "substantially identical". While a wooden hockey stick would be quite different than a composite hockey stick, a plausible argument exists that they are "substantially identical", but only until the applicant argues that his composite construction actually enhances the thing's usefulness as a hockey stick. On the infringement side, it enables the patent holder to sue people for using his process as well as manufacturing "substantially identical" hockey sticks - but remember that this is defined before the patent is issued as NOT a hockey stick that is "substantially equal" to the prior art. It's basically a shortcut to patenting the actual, specific hockey stick itself by defining it according to the process that makes it.
The result is that you could have TWO different processes of making a composite hockey stick - process A protected by patent A and process B protected by patent B. The two processes are perfectly free from infringing each other. However, if they produce the same hockey stick, and patent A claims the hockey stick in a product by process claim, then the assignee of patent B must still license the final product from the assignee of patent A.
True, however antigravity produced by a black box is not a "business outcome".
If I invent a patented black box that makes something lighter than air and you invent a patented black box that reduces the effects of gravity and the effect on a given object is exactly the same, our patents do not infringe.
And this is false. The concept is called "product by process" as I mentioned previously. If Patent A issues before Patent B, and A has a "antigravity produced by means of a black box", then Patent B cannot claim patent protection for its antigravity unless B's applicant proves that his antigravity is not "substantially identical" to that produced by A. If B fails to do so, then B has a patentable process (or black box apparatus) which produces a product patented by A. Using B's invention infringes on A's product by process claim.
This only comes into play if A has a "product by process" claim, however any competent attorney would throw one in on the first attempt.
Before asserting what the "stated objectives of the USPTO" are, I encourage you to study what 35 U.S.C. say. The USPTO's objectives are to examine patents according to the law - nothing more, nothing less. The law says that an article of manufacture (product), an apparatus (machine), a process, a composition of material, or an improvement of any of those 4 are patentable. Case law supports the concept of "product by process". You can have two patented machines or processes which produce "substantially identical" products - only one patent can properly claim protection for the product.
Patents are a license to sue. They are designed as licenses to sue. They grant the assignee a temporary monopoly should he/she/it choose to enforce it and they grant a source of revenue should he/she/it choose to license it.
If you have two black boxes and both produce anti-gravity but by different means, one may infringe upon the other. This example would likely fall under a "product by process" claim, and the burden would fall on the inventor of the second product to prove that his antigravity is patentably distinct from the first antigravity, if the first black box is patented with a product by process claim. In distilled form, the rules regarding prior art for product by process claims during prosecution of a patent application state that (in this case) antigravity which is "substantially identical" to antigravity produced by a different process is prior art and the second invention's antigravity is NOT patentably different from the prior art.
Now, if we stay away from patenting the antigravity itself (and therefore away from a product by process claim) you could easily have to patentable devices for producing antigravity.
And, for discussion's sake, I'm pretending that antigravity is patentable. ;)
No offense to the original poster, but the fact that it was modded so highly informative ought to make some people (some with mod points, some without) think about how informed the Slashdot crowd really is about the patent system. Again I reiterate - no offense to the original poster.
CSPAN is good for participation in democracy.
And TV shows about doctors convince kids to stay in school.
And TV shows about violence convince kids to stay out of trouble.
And COPS inspires the right people to join law enforcement.
And sex on TV is good for healthy population growth.
And American Media made me the genuine, sincere person I am today.
Or maybe submitting models is simply a bad solution because it would exacerbate the problem by creating an entirely new logistical crisis as a fake solution to an unrelated problem that should be solved directly.
Look, if you think that "nondevices" shouldn't be patentable, find a judge who agrees and produce the case law. Problem solved. It wouldn't require the millions of dollars spent to house them, it wouldn't burden the applicants with submitting them, it wouldn't burden the examiners with screwing around with models (who the hell is qualified to "examine" a model? What in hell would that even mean, legally?), and it wouldn't allow the attorneys to require the models is evidence of prior art (and you really haven't addressed this appropriately. Merely asserting that "something could be done" is laughable. Burden of proof on one side become burden of proof on the other.)
I wonder how government spending gets out of control? Hm, I dunno, maybe it's stuff like extravagent and superfluous "solutions" that only address the actual problem tangentially? Just a thought. This idea that I'm all "absorbed" in the industry while you're the clever genius who has solved the whole problem is absurd. Flip that coin over - I probably have a far better idea what the problem is than the guy who has spoken with a lawyer a couple of times.
Models it ain't.
Haha, if it wasn't true, I'd just be a dumbass, not a troll. ;)
That's hilarious. If someone sells you a diamond for a nickel, you're probably getting what you paid for. If someone AUCTIONS that diamond and you're the highest bidder, you're probably getting what you paid for but consoled by the fact that other morons envy what you got.
A patent is a license to sue. Selling a license to sue is a pretty good indication of how strong the current owners think that license is...
Yeah, uh, I've been to the hospital once or twice but I'm not sure how that qualifies me to know how many people are truly sick.
I'm glad you've got some experience with the patent system. I get about 50 hours per week. While I appreciate the sentiment - and the intended results from what you propose - I really don't think requiring models will achieve those ends. How would you patent nanotechnology? Animal husbandry technology (actually quite a large technology - have the examiner sit in a lawnchair until the cattle get it on?) The law STILL says "The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention." (35 USC 112) It's not a model, but it's the next best thing. There are SO many logistic problems with models that it's really not a reasonable solution.
Fair enough.
Now we're probably talking about 100K applications per year - probably really less than 50K if the model is examined only after all are vetted,
Completely baseless speculation, but whatever - that's par for the course around /.
The 4000 models per month would be examined in by an office in each state (California, New York, Texas and other big states might get multiples), averaging 80 models per month per state. Really large models (like a nuclear power plant) might require a field examiner to visit them. The costs are part of the application fee. Big inventions typically have big potential profits.
Great! As a result, it will be impossible to actually search the prior art since it will be spread all over the country. If you tried to USE the paper documents, all attorneys would immediately say, "Wait wait wait! If you required the model before issuing the patent, I'm going to require that model before acknowledging that it's prior art! If you expect ME to believe your prior art without a model, then why the hell do we have to submit models?" Sweet. The system would grind to a complete halt and we'd have an IP wild west where all competitive advantages are meaningless and he with the most capital will win everything. Utopia can't be far away!
Seriously, you seem to know more about the patent system than the average poster around here, but requiring models is a really poor solution. In cases where models would actually make a difference they are still used - but they're generally delivered by the attorneys & applicants in person. It keeps the system far more sane that way.
Because we're scared shitless of having nothing. Welcome to the New Old World.
"Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power"
Benito Mussolini (Italian dictator, 1883-1945)
Traitor! We voted for MORAL VALUES which means we remind all gay people that they're nothing but fags, as Jesus taught us!
Eh... sorry to make light of your very serious point. I don't have anything meaningful to add. Sorry.
Life isn't easy. The point is that you're searching in a dozen areas while not searching in thousands. If you're really not up to the task, there are people who work professionally as patent searchers.
Regarding the second point, the fact that the law states the a patent has to be understandable to a person skilled in the art is of little help. The fact is a large percentage are not - I know this from experience.
I read about 100 patents per week on everything from stamping sheet metal to modeling data to database systems to distributed computing. While I'm a little better at reading patents than the average guy, I'm reading them in plenty of technologies where I am not "a person of ordinary skill". My point? They aren't that hard if you go into it with any idea what the topic is. They aren't examined by MENSA, after all. (insert your cheap shot here, if you must)
Regarding the third point, you are correct. Patents are assumed valid until judged otherwise.
It would be extremely unwise to infringe on someone's patent unless you have direct counsel from a confident attorney. Seriously, just think about that one for a moment. If you read it in a patent, you should probably assume (as would anyone outside of a courtroom) that the patent is valid and act accordingly.
Alright, fair enough. The "prior practice" was a convention, however, and not law. I know basically nobody around /. gives a shit about the difference between a law and what they read on the internet, but it's not an insignificant point.
By the way, the USPTO receives 350,000 applications per year and has a back log of about 30 months. You figure out how to store, transport, and examine 350,000 models and you probably have a patent application of your own.
Sorry, I meant to reply to this as well.
What I assume you are unfamiliar with is the scope of the USPTO's powers and how those powers are defined. The USPTO doesn't really MAKE any decisions about what can or cannot be patented. The USPTO must, at all times, follow the law (made by Congress) and interpretations of the law (made by judges). The case law created by judge's interpretations is a constantly moving target - there patents issued in 1990 that the USPTO would be unable to issue in 2000. There are patents that the USPTO could not stop from being issued in 2004 that would have never issued in 1984. While the USPTO is sensitive to certain problematic areas of patent law, the USPTO cannot directly change the law.
The result? Pick your fights. If you have 1,000 applications that all lean on some minefield of an area, you pick those applications submitted by historically litigious assignees that are basically guaranteed to be appealed all the way to D.C. Federal Court. The other 999 are water under the bridge - they'll be straightened out when and if they are used in court in light of that 1 case that went to D.C. Federal Court. If the USPTO decided to just reject those 1,000 applications, then the USPTO is in the wrong for acting unlawfully.
So you see, the only way to resolve an issue is to pick your fights. That's the law. If you don't like that, you have a problem with the law, not the USPTO. I'm just asking that you understand the system well enough that you actually understand what it is you don't like about it.
The USPTO isn't really charged with challenging the "substance" of the patent. It's charged with challenging the scope of patent protection. You can become a published poet by sticking your poetry in the patent application if you like. The USPTO doesn't care.
Much of the time, they aren't trying to force you to change your claims, either. If they reject your claims, and your attorney argues around it by saying that the prior art and your claims are different things, it's just as good. That argument doesn't get printed on the patent, but if you use that patent in court, you'll find that those arguments are officially in the record and might as well be printed on the patent itself.
I'm not saying that the system is perfect, but by far the largest problem are the rampant misconceptions of what the USPTO is supposed to be doing. That you believe there was no "actual examination" is the strongest evidence that you are, as you say, not an expert. That's not meant as a slight, just an observation. I'm sure you are an expert on the technical matters - you make a living dealing in the technical matters. Being an expert on the legal matters is a completely different profession that requires years of schooling.
I've got all the respect in the world for the guy who says, "This seems crazy to me, but it's not my field. What's the deal?" It's really hard to respect the guy who says, "I briefly watched someone else do their job and everyone involved is a moron."
Which provokes the question, "What is the appropriate exclamation when your shop vac fails to perform?"
This thing doesn't suck?
I'm curious to hear your response why you would call these people "conservatives". According to what was originally written in the Constitution, "Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title" (35 USC 101). You notice there's nothing in there about a working model, of course. That was a temporary requirement of the Code of Federal Regulations and never required in law.
So I'm just curious - why do you suggest that amending the Constitution is what the "conservatives" would do? It sounds pretty liberal to me.
It's far easier to search if you use the classification. Rather than hoping you get the right terms, it acts like an index. This alone should narrow down your search to 100-5000 patents, and don't forget they are all cross referenced before being issued and related patents are listed on the front page.
While this is a problem, the law states that if the patent does not clearly convey to a person of ordinary skill in the art how to make and/or use the invention, it is legally deficient. I'm not making an excuse for all patents, but while 99.9% of the patents may be cryptic, you might be surprised how readable they are when you are "an person of ordinary skill in the art". Again, I'm not excusing all patents.
This one is easy. If the patent has not expired or been abandoned, it is valid until a judge says otherwise. All live patents are presumed valid until proven otherwise in court.
You have just proposed the current system. If you sue me with a flimsy patent, I'd be a complete moron to roll over and pay up rather than attack your patent. Come after me and you will end up defending the validity of your patent. That's how the system has always worked, however I don't think the groupthink around /. has ever been particularly interested in the facts about patents. It's much more fun to wave pitchforks, light torches, and do whatever some ridiculously liberal ideologue tells us we should think if we want to be cool like him. ;)