You're absolutely right. When I was fresh outta college and working as an examiner, I would use whatever f***ed up logic that made my boss happy with my production numbers. I'm not proud of that fact, but it did make my life considerably better.
I am agreeing with you that the system is pretty jacked up and no longer encourages innovation (which is what it was meant for in the first place. Thomas Jefferson would probably be working for Google if he were alive today.
On an RCE: Yeah, you get a count for the disposal and a count for sending out your first office action, which is merely a response to the amended claims... usually a rejection. It's nice when they make it allowable on the first action, but that never happens.
I left the patent office in November of 2006. This is accurate. A newbie examiner must complete a count in 22.55 hours, which means roughly 4 counts must be turned in per biweek (80 hours in the real world). A count is collected when one of the following happens: 1. First Action (pick up a case and send applicant a non-final rejection) 2. Allowing the application (to become a patent) 3. Make them pay more money by filing a Request for Continued Examination (RCE)
This includes searching, arguing and verifying correct structure/content/layout.
"How's your production?" is the question to gauge the quality of someone's biweek and ending weekend will be.
Slashdot Mirror
You're absolutely right. When I was fresh outta college and working as an examiner, I would use whatever f***ed up logic that made my boss happy with my production numbers. I'm not proud of that fact, but it did make my life considerably better.
I am agreeing with you that the system is pretty jacked up and no longer encourages innovation (which is what it was meant for in the first place. Thomas Jefferson would probably be working for Google if he were alive today.
On an RCE: Yeah, you get a count for the disposal and a count for sending out your first office action, which is merely a response to the amended claims... usually a rejection. It's nice when they make it allowable on the first action, but that never happens.
I left the patent office in November of 2006. This is accurate. A newbie examiner must complete a count in 22.55 hours, which means roughly 4 counts must be turned in per biweek (80 hours in the real world). A count is collected when one of the following happens:
1. First Action (pick up a case and send applicant a non-final rejection)
2. Allowing the application (to become a patent)
3. Make them pay more money by filing a Request for Continued Examination (RCE)
This includes searching, arguing and verifying correct structure/content/layout.
"How's your production?" is the question to gauge the quality of someone's biweek and ending weekend will be.