Shocking: Patent Examiners Against Patent Reform That Tries To Fix Patent Examiner Mistakes
from the what-a-surprise dept
This ought to come as no surprise at all. A group that supposedly represents patent examiners has come out against the latest attempt at patent reform. As we've made clear, the attempt at patent reform certainly has some major problems, but those don't seem to be the focus of the complaint. Instead, the document seems to be a combination of patent examiners claiming "it's not our fault!" for approving all sorts of awful patents along with a plea to hire more patent examiners. This is wrong on both accounts -- though, perhaps you can blame others (the USPTO and the courts, for instance) for pushing patent examiners to approve patents that had no business being approved. As for the old myth that hiring more patent examiners will fix the problem, that's been thoroughly debunked. Patent examiners simply don't scale at the same pace as innovation. The problem isn't that we need more examiners, but that too many people have lost sight of the real purpose of the patent system: to create incentives for innovation. It is not, as many people now assume, to give full ownership of an idea to the first person to claim it. The sooner people recognize the real purpose of the patent system, the faster we'll get rid of the problems the current patent system creates in hindering innovation.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: patent examiners, patent reform, patents
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Patents are rewards that hinder innovation
If your purpose is to foster innovation, then a free market without monopolies (without patents) will be far more effective.
So, the sooner people recognise that the patent system hinders innovation at the expense of arbitrary rewards to patent filers, the faster we'll get rid of the patent system and the greatest hindrance to innovation.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Patents are rewards that hinder innovation
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Patents are rewards that hinder innovation
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Patents are rewards that hinder innovation
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I the same way as patenting wheel...
At least it would be fun :)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Problems Shmoblems
I honestly envy the people that got to live during 1860-1950 and had the chance to see humanity make such stunning technological and scientific progress :(.
I am pretty sure that the patent system, in whatever form, is a small factor in the global lack of progress - the blame should be placed elsewhere.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Problems Shmoblems
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Problems Shmoblems
Back then, people would wake up and find their world upside down - magic turned into reality.
Television.(maaagic)
Flight
Nuclear power (Holy crap)
Theory of relativity (Science reset)
Cars !!!
Jet engines
Space travel.
Computers
We simply don't have such breakthrough anymore. Zero. We have microscopic , linear progress, based on previous technology.
You can't compare that to the times when innovators where (mainstream heroes.(Wright brothers, Einstein...)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Problems Shmoblems
GPS can be done with Sputnik-era satellites, it is just a mathematical computation done on the reciever end.
Cell phones are just sohpisticated radios++.
Going to the moon(and space) was made possible due to WW2 technology.("I am for the stars, but sometimes I hit London")
The internet concept is certainly great, but I hope you know how old it really is ...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Problems Shmoblems
Technology is developing at an ever increasing pace. In the past 100 years we have learned to harness the power of the atom, discovered MRI tech, global communications, mapped a few genome's, cloned animals, reduced mortality rates many times over, and improved every other existing technology on earth...
You might want to pull your head out of your a$$ next time you think about commenting.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Problems Shmoblems
Technology is NOT developing in increasing pace. There was a boom of innovation , and we comfortably riding it into linear progress.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Problems Shmoblems
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Problems Shmoblems
Because we are in times of almost absolute peace now(probably less than 200,000 KIA in all the world in the last 10 years), you can't really compare 1900-1950-Now. Nobody is racing anywhere.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Problems Shmoblems
Funny, I keep hearing how the danger is increasing every day and the terrowists are everywhere. (Fudd accent intentional)
I find it amazing that everyday, two sets of facts emerge, one saying things are getting safer and the other saying we're all going to die...and yet people want to hear more about the latter than the former.
I digress.
Asmodeus
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Further Reading
http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/againstnew.htm
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Progress in the last 50 years
Birth Control
Personal Computers
Internet
Genetic Sequencing
GPS
Cell Phones
High-Yield Rice
Digital Storage
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Broken for a long time.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Fix the problems.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Patents don't persuade publication
Patents are for manufacturers who wish to produce a device whose design must necessarily become public knowledge, but who wish to prevent competition by obtaining a monopoly over use of the design.
Such monopolies are obviously commercially valuable to those who obtain them.
However, the issue is whether they are in the public interest.
For each lucrative monopoly, there are millions of other manufacturers who are no longer able to use a particular design and hence suffer a commercial and technological disadvantage.
Patents are not miraculous cost-free favours a king can dish out willy nilly. They are profligate gifts that are paid for by holding everyone else back.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
There really is magic out there, just because you don't recognize it doesn't mean it isn't happening.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
You know, like Graham Bell, Edison, Wright, Einstein. At those times, the challenge was "make it fly". Now it's just "make it fly slightly faster".
Those times - Television.
Our times : HD Television.
Got it ?
If you are a scientist nowadays it is even more frustrating. Dark Matter and String theory are used as a mathematical excuse for almost everything that doesn't fit.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
We are more secure, it is harder for terrorists to move about, to plan, to communicate, to pull together an operation.
The only problem is that the tools they have to use today can do much more harm. Instead of killing a few people or a few thousand, there is now the capability to kill a few million.
The stakes are much higher now.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
welcome to 21 century dude
You know, like Graham Bell, Edison, Wright, Einstein"
Hey, dude
Welcome to the 21 century, when everything and evrybody (including US Congress)is owned by huge multinational corporations
Gone are those days when an inventor could actually establish his rightful monopoly on some new technology.
Nowdays everythibng gets stolen by default, by huge multinational corps or by Chinese
Relax, dude.
Be a good corporate slave
And BTW, Einstein was totally unemployable, you should know it, dude - just read some books...
Today is no better for real scientists - just read the story about Perelman and Poicare Conjecture...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Communications and colobration is much better today than in the past, so individual inventors work together much more often, when there are many involved, less recognition happens.
Science has sequenced DNA, what do you think Salk would think of that? We can travel the stars, what do you think Einstein would think of that?
Think about it. I can sit here on my cell phone PDA and post on Techdirt from anywhere in the country, what do you think Alex G. Bell would think about that?
Salk was famous for the Polio Vaccine. He didn't win the Nobel Prize for it though, guys who earlier had figured out how to grow the polio virus did. All Salk did was to work out a vaccine building on their research.
All this talk of patents hurting innovation, Steve Woz. has a patent for the PC. Did that guarentee Apple a lock on the PC market?
Well, did it? When did Apple ever dominate that market?
In the past, a single patent could dominate a market. Today, not so much.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
It took a few hundred tries before Edison got a light bulb that lasted more than a few hours (don't forget that Joseph Swan created something very similar to a light bulb in 1860, Edison finally got one that was commercially viable).
It took the Wright Brothers dozens of revisions before they got a propeller that worked well enough for flight (their first tries used propellers similar to existing technology...a boat).
Edison and Bell would have been up shit creek if it weren't for the previous work of Morse who developed the telegraph and electromagnet.
The television would have never been possible if it weren't for the light bulb which led to the development of vacuum tubes.
See a pattern here? These things don't just appear out of nowhere. Just like today, technology is developed using existing ideas. Get out of your nostalgic daydream.
Don't forget you quoted a nearly 90 year period then compare it to the last 50 years of progress. Do you honestly think things are going to be the same in another 40 years?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]