Can You Speed Up Patent Reviews While Improving Patent Quality?
from the if-so,-how? dept
I caught most of Commerce Secretary Gary Locke's speech (to a surprisingly small audience) yesterday at CES. There really wasn't that much that was worth commenting on, as it was mostly filled with typical political platitudes, and statements that often were based on questionable assumptions. For example, when he spoke about patents, as he's done before, he talked up the importance of approving more patents faster. But, right after that, he also talked about the importance of increasing the quality of approved patents, and getting rid of bad patents. What he didn't explain is how the USPTO would deal with the inherent conflict. If you speed up the pace of approving patents, you're inevitably going to let more bad patents through. It's nice to just say you want to speed up patent approvals while improving the quality of patents, but you have to at least recognize that the two goals are clearly in conflict. There may be ways to mitigate that (though, I'm not convinced any would actually work all that well in the long run), but it seems like the typical political promises of things that work against each other, such as claiming to want to increase government funded social services, while decreasing taxes. The two concepts are inherently in conflict, but politicians make such promises all the time. Still, if Locke really believes it's possible to bridge that conflict, it would be nice if he actually explained how.
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: gary locke, patents, quality, speed
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Still, I wonder if it would work well if they would allocate the patent approval into "approval" and "appeals", and put most of their people into approval.
(Rather than currently, where I believe the person who initially rejected it is also the person who has to deal with any appeals?)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:Appeals Process
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:Appeals Process
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:Appeals Process
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
See Also
Shoring up artificially high house prices while working to provide affordable housing.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
ps: Homage to Nina Paley and her infatuation with poop LoL
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
One way would be to....
Use theses experts to weed out the applications that are beyond questionable or are simply not worthy of further examination and allow the examiners to actually work on only those submissions which need examining to qualify for approval.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: One way would be to....
- Make sure that it got eyeballs on it, they need to track the quantity of eyeballs that reviewed it, if it falls beyond a minimum set of eyeballs it is flagged to more scrutiny or automatically rejected.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Not so in conflict
The USPTO could double or triple its staff, and also hire an army of consultants (in every domain) to confirm the non-obviousness of each application. Plus a lot of investigators for the prior art.
This way, reviews will be sped up, and the quality will increase.
And I'm sure that's what Mr Locke meant
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
1) Accept all patents for a grace period of 4 months;
2) During this grace period, the USPTO searches for prior art and obviousness. IF obviousness is found, then the patent is rejected outright and cannot be refiled by ANY company. IF prior art is found, the patent ia rejected with the option to modify and improve the patent;
3) Patents are monopolised, with a licensing option available, for 7 years. After this time, the patent cannot be renewed.
4) Any patents used to file mass actions come under automatic scrutiny, and the lawsuit(s) is(are) held for a three-month period, pending the review. IF found to be false, then the patent is autopmatically entered into the public domain.
5) Minor improvements cannot be added to or modify an existing patent. They also count as prior art.
I think this should suffice.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Quick patent examination
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
2 Tier Track
Also, have it so if any of the claims are found invalid, all of the patent is invalid. Right now, they'll claim EVERYTHING because there is no penalty for not claiming everything.
And software patents should never have been allowed.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
whining
What large companies who whine about it mean is get rid of patents owned by small entities that they are subject too. The truth is they really don't care about patent quality or pendancy.
For a knowledgeable analysis of patent issues, please see http://truereform.piausa.org.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
A “Patent Stimulus” to End the Recession?
Writes Quinn:
"What we need to do is have President Obama issue an Executive Order directing the Patent Office to start allowing patents. A 42% allowance rate during the first quarter of 2009 is wholly unacceptable. … So while you are at it President Obama, order the Patent Office to issue a patent UNLESS there is a reason to deny it."
See my post A “Patent Stimulus” to End the Recession?.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Forex Broker Reviews
[ link to this | view in chronology ]