A few days ago Mike made a reasonable argument for why the FTC should get involved in issues like Net Neutrality. I'm no expert on what the FTC does or how it does it, but it seems this kind of situation is more up their alley. Mike makes a good point that these providers, especially T-Mobile have just admitted, at least implicitly, that the data-caps they've imposed were artificial, and not consumer-friendly. I'm inclined to agree (but I'll admit I've always thought the data-caps were bogus so maybe I am a tad biased there). So what, if anything, can the FTC do here to help? How likely is it that they would?
I'd like to know if Mr. Rogers remembers the last time the US Gov't tried to "fix" 1/6th of the US Economy in some way? I for one haven't forgotten the train wreck that is the Affordable Care Act aka Obamacare.
I'm pretty sure 1/6th of the US Economy can take good care of itself with the "good intentions" of our government.
You're welcome. I think that one of the things PTO can do much better than it does is try to educate the public about what we do and what patents are. That's what I am trying to do because I feel like there are some things people here don't seem to understand. Like many people, I want fair and unbiased, educated reporting. I feel that some of that is missing here. Mike at times comes across as not having much of an idea and very biased against the PTO. In fact, I'll even say his more recent article about the CAFC and obviousness was one of the best articles he has written about patents that I've read.
I will never sit here and say the Agency doesn't deserve criticism at times. It, and the people that represent it, do at times deserve to be criticized. I have no problem with criticism when it's deserved. I'd even like to think I didn't let the PTO entirely off the hook with my previous comments either. But the PTO has tried to do things to fix problems in the past and has been met with opposition.
The PTO is certainly not blameless, but the bulk of the problems are beyond the control of PTO. Like the FTC, we operate in accordance with the laws as best we can. The FTC at least has laws and rules on the books that allow them to do what Mike suggests they should consider. If the PTO had the same laws and rules to help us go after patent trolls, I expect that we would.
I'm going to do my best to address all the questions and comments here. First off, let me be clear, that yes, I am an Examiner. And what I have to say are my views, and I do not speak for the Agency.
First off, I agree that trolls are a problem. But they are a small part of the whole for one. But what can the PTO really do? Aside from not granting bad patents as you say, there really isn't much. We have little control over issued patents. And less control over what people choose to do with them. At best, the commissioner can order a Reexamination. I have no idea how often this happens, if at all.
Second, people need to understand what a patent is and what it isn't. It grants a limited right to exclude others from making or using your CLAIMED invention. Not the invention you've disclosed, not the pictures or the description or the title. Only what is claimed. It doesn't give an exclusive right to make or sell a product. Those claims are the legally enforceable part. Trolls are doing nothing more than enforcing their right to exclude others. Whether or not they have a "good" or "bad" patent doesn't matter until it gets to court. Once issued, as I understand it, there is a presumption of validity until proven otherwise.
Third, just my opinion, the story here was about Net Neutrality and the FTC and whether or not they should get involved. My opinion, the shot at PTO did nothing to help make the arguement that they should. And for those who say he was taking a shot at the Agency and not the people who work there, just remember that the Agency can do nothing. It has no capability. It relies solely on the people who work there to produce anything. So a shot at the Agency is directly a shot at the people who do the work the Agency is credited with.
There is a notion that we grant everything. Simply not true. I cant speak for every area within the Agency or every Examiner, but plenty of applications are never issued. We have this thing called an abandonment. We use it. That being said, I'll admit that I don't think we have a perfect system. We have production, don't meet it and it can cost you your job. We have limited hours to search cases, most of those hours depend on the technology, and most of those hours were settled on 40 years ago. We've more than doubled the amount of issued patents since then, not to mention all the pre-grant publications and the expanded foreign patent databases as well, and the increasingly complex nature of technology as it evolves. We don't get unlimited time to examine. To some extent it is argued that that's OK because we have computers to search instead of paper files, and that makes it faster. We have a limited number of tools at our disposal to reject cases. Often times we need some patent or publication. It is difficult to reject without it, in part because of the courts and in part because the people who sign cases are reluctant to reject without it. If anything congress and the courts haven't given us enough tools to reject things. That is only made worse when we give applicants as many cracks at getting a patent as they can afford. For example, when I issue an Final Rejection that is supposed to close prosecution, but we allow them to file an After-Final Amendment that we still have to consider. Then they can file Requests for Continued Examination after that. So it goes on and on. The Agency once tried to impose limits on the number of claims, but the outside fought it and won. Those rules would have likely helped, because it limited the numbers of claims to examine, hopefully giving us claims better directed at the invention and less fishing expeditions. With fewer claims we can hopefully do a better examination on those claims, leading to better quality. And hopefully it would help us reduce the backlog of applications. But it wasn't allowed to happen. We do the best job we can with what we are given to work with. But it's far from perfect.
I will never say that sometimes things are issued that probably shouldn't have been. And I could write a lot more here, but I am hopeful that this at least gives you my perspective on some of the issues and gives you an idea of what we do and why things happen the way they do. It is isn't perfect, it never will be, but there is certainly room for improvement. But try to keep in mind that we are working with the system the courts and congress have given us.
Why do you hate the USPTO so much? Do you even understand what the PTO does? Since you went out of your way to take an unneccessary shot at the people who work here, maybe you can take some time out of your day to actually talk to some of them and learn a bit about what we do. Just a thought. While I enjoy techdirt and all, I'm personally getting a bit irritated with the constant uninformed, misunderstood bashing of the PTO by you in particular.
The simple answer is because they are required by law. In exchange for the grant of a patent, which has a limited term, it is required that the patentee tells others how to make and use their claimed invention. Those other parts exist to help tell the public how to make it and how to use it.
Have you ever read a patent? That's standard boilerplate in pretty much every application genius.
I am an examiner. The thing that most of you don't seem to understand is that what matters is what is in the claim(s). Before Mikey and Timmy and whoever else at Techdirt go off on your little anti-patenting, anti-USPTO tirades maybe you should figure out just what a patent is and what it isn't. Then maybe you all wouldn't sound like idiots thinking you can do my job better than me :)
This case somehow reminds of something I heard a lawyer say in court once. The lawyer, defending a man from a restraining order based on a written statement he made, argued that at best the statement was annoying. And, if annoying someone was the bar by which we measured the need for a granting a restraining order then at some point all of us would inevitably possess a restraining order. The Judge agreed and denied that restraining order. It's good to see that there are more Judges out there who understand the concept that not being annoyed is somehow a fundamental right you have and anyone who violates your non-existent right is instantly guilty of a crime.
Remember, you do not have the right to not be offended. The sooner people re-learn this, the better off all of us will be.
I have to agree with you, it is in there. And it isn't adhered to. And there is basically no penalty for not adhering to it. I think a part of the problem is that the law and our constitution are written in very broad and vague terms. What I was proposing was to clarify the language, to (hopefully) give the government less wiggle-room.
Lets face it, We The People need to do something to reign in our government that seeks to use our legal system as a tool to keep us in line while they run roughshod over us and our rights. Ultimately I am trying to start a dialogue on how do we fight back and take back control of our country and our lives?
It think it's time at the State and Federal Level for some amendments to the various constitutions.
No person, or their legal representative, shall be denied access, for any reason, to any evidence against their person as a right of due process. Further, the right of full disclosure of any lawful decision, being fundamental to the function of a civil society, shall not be infringed.
Its a rough draft, but the idea is that evidence, as anyone might expect, must be disclosed. That is fundamental to an effective defense, and one that should be reinforced. The "For any reason" clause really is meant to say the government cannot rely in evidence that they aren't willing to disclose, as that clearly violates due process. And finally, getting rid of secret courts is a no-brainer. Americans have a fundamental right, in my opinion, to know what their government is up to, free from redactions or other techniques employed to reduce the understanding of the public for the decisions that they are bound to.
Is it just me, or if you took this article and did a quick Find/Replace all and replaced "LAPD" with "NSA", "Driver" with "Citizen" and "ALPR" with "Call Records" you'd have exactly the same story we've been seeing with regards to the Snowden leaks?
You have to admire how every level of government works together to feed us all the same line of non-sense. So I have to wonder how much the NSA has an interest in the LAPD winning in the courts on this. Even though this is a State issue and any ruling would likely be at that level, I have to imagine a win here would have the NSA a little concerned about a similar outcome in some of their pending litigation in the federal courts. Their argument is essentially the same, that they need all this data because it might be relevant someday, maybe. Oh, and we can't talk about it because privacy is important and stuff. And Terrorism.
You DO NOT HAVE the right to not be offended. In my mind, the very notion that you might have a right to not be offended serves only to stifle free and open debate and suppress criticism.
Defenders of these programs argue that they're "flushing out" potential terrorists, but many of us worry about where this crosses the line into entrapment and a sort of "pre-crime" rather than stopping any actual crime.
This feels very "Minority Report" to me. Except this is real life, not the movies.
Don't you see, they do employ geniuses. And one of them decided that if they keep paper files it is much more difficult to prevent people from gaining access to the information they legally request.
And even if it's not true, and they don't actually keep all this stuff in paper files, how do we really know? They can say it all they want, and it gives them an excuse. Pretty good way to keep people from getting information when they can't just say "disclosing our contractor information is a grave risk to national security".
Ok, so maybe it isn't genius level stuff, but clearly the people trying to withhold all the NSA data aren't completely stupid either.
When will people just learn that they don't have a right to not be offended?
You don't have that right. No one has given it to you, and it certainly isn't inherent to life or society.
If something offends you, you can leave or walk away, you can go to a different website even, you can change the channel on the television. But I don't see that you have the right to prohibit me from viewing something you don't agree with.
The fact that President Obama hasn't yet fired Alexander in particular is fairly incredible, given this latest revelation.
I'm not sure why this is all that incredible. Obama doesn't hold anyone accountable for anything, unless he is blaming Bush and the Republicans for his latest screw-up. He believes he can just campaign his way through every problem, and that is easier than admitting he made a bad decision to keep incompetent people on the job.
Besides, if he fired someone, the government would get smaller and he doesn't want that either.
So yeah, not that incredible. Par for the course really.
I live in the DC area, and use the Metro system here to get around. In the mornings, for those who don't know, there is a free newspaper called The Examiner. There have been a couple of occasions where I have read stories in that paper describing how the FBI/Local Police had stopped an attack at a Metro station. In those instances the authorities had found out about someone planning a bombing, and had sent in undercover agents to help them. Later, the terrorist was arrested and charged once there was enough evidence against that person.
Now, we already know that various agencies have been fed information from other agencies and used that data to basically fabricate a reason to investigate people, leading to arrest, in order to hide how that data was actually discovered.
So I have to wonder, of those two stories I recall reading about, if they are part of that "54 Terrorists stopped" number the NSA keeps telling us about. If this is the case, how many of those attacks were basically encouraged by our own government in order to help the NSA have their so-called success. They have tried again and again to sell us on the need for their activities, I just can't put it past them to do something like this.
I don't disagree that warrants present problems for police and the police state, and they don't like them.
But, I also have to wonder how much has to do with the courts as well? Many courts seem to be backed up with cases, and judges love to clear their dockets. So adding warrants to a judges docket has the potential, I would think, to back things up even more. That means more waiting for everyone. Hard to say how much this factors in, but it is my $0.02 worth.
On the post: Music Freedom Or Holding Consumers Hostage? Letting ISPs Pick Winners And Losers Is A Problem
Where is the FTC?
On the post: Mike Rogers Says Google Is Unpatriotic For Not Wanting NSA To Spy On Its Users
1/6th of the Economy
I'm pretty sure 1/6th of the US Economy can take good care of itself with the "good intentions" of our government.
On the post: Forget The FCC: Should We Be Looking To The FTC To Save An Open Internet?
Re: Re: Re: Dear Mikey
I will never sit here and say the Agency doesn't deserve criticism at times. It, and the people that represent it, do at times deserve to be criticized. I have no problem with criticism when it's deserved. I'd even like to think I didn't let the PTO entirely off the hook with my previous comments either. But the PTO has tried to do things to fix problems in the past and has been met with opposition.
The PTO is certainly not blameless, but the bulk of the problems are beyond the control of PTO. Like the FTC, we operate in accordance with the laws as best we can. The FTC at least has laws and rules on the books that allow them to do what Mike suggests they should consider. If the PTO had the same laws and rules to help us go after patent trolls, I expect that we would.
On the post: Forget The FCC: Should We Be Looking To The FTC To Save An Open Internet?
Re: Dear Mikey
First off, I agree that trolls are a problem. But they are a small part of the whole for one. But what can the PTO really do? Aside from not granting bad patents as you say, there really isn't much. We have little control over issued patents. And less control over what people choose to do with them. At best, the commissioner can order a Reexamination. I have no idea how often this happens, if at all.
Second, people need to understand what a patent is and what it isn't. It grants a limited right to exclude others from making or using your CLAIMED invention. Not the invention you've disclosed, not the pictures or the description or the title. Only what is claimed. It doesn't give an exclusive right to make or sell a product. Those claims are the legally enforceable part. Trolls are doing nothing more than enforcing their right to exclude others. Whether or not they have a "good" or "bad" patent doesn't matter until it gets to court. Once issued, as I understand it, there is a presumption of validity until proven otherwise.
Third, just my opinion, the story here was about Net Neutrality and the FTC and whether or not they should get involved. My opinion, the shot at PTO did nothing to help make the arguement that they should. And for those who say he was taking a shot at the Agency and not the people who work there, just remember that the Agency can do nothing. It has no capability. It relies solely on the people who work there to produce anything. So a shot at the Agency is directly a shot at the people who do the work the Agency is credited with.
There is a notion that we grant everything. Simply not true. I cant speak for every area within the Agency or every Examiner, but plenty of applications are never issued. We have this thing called an abandonment. We use it. That being said, I'll admit that I don't think we have a perfect system. We have production, don't meet it and it can cost you your job. We have limited hours to search cases, most of those hours depend on the technology, and most of those hours were settled on 40 years ago. We've more than doubled the amount of issued patents since then, not to mention all the pre-grant publications and the expanded foreign patent databases as well, and the increasingly complex nature of technology as it evolves. We don't get unlimited time to examine. To some extent it is argued that that's OK because we have computers to search instead of paper files, and that makes it faster. We have a limited number of tools at our disposal to reject cases. Often times we need some patent or publication. It is difficult to reject without it, in part because of the courts and in part because the people who sign cases are reluctant to reject without it. If anything congress and the courts haven't given us enough tools to reject things. That is only made worse when we give applicants as many cracks at getting a patent as they can afford. For example, when I issue an Final Rejection that is supposed to close prosecution, but we allow them to file an After-Final Amendment that we still have to consider. Then they can file Requests for Continued Examination after that. So it goes on and on. The Agency once tried to impose limits on the number of claims, but the outside fought it and won. Those rules would have likely helped, because it limited the numbers of claims to examine, hopefully giving us claims better directed at the invention and less fishing expeditions. With fewer claims we can hopefully do a better examination on those claims, leading to better quality. And hopefully it would help us reduce the backlog of applications. But it wasn't allowed to happen. We do the best job we can with what we are given to work with. But it's far from perfect.
I will never say that sometimes things are issued that probably shouldn't have been. And I could write a lot more here, but I am hopeful that this at least gives you my perspective on some of the issues and gives you an idea of what we do and why things happen the way they do. It is isn't perfect, it never will be, but there is certainly room for improvement. But try to keep in mind that we are working with the system the courts and congress have given us.
Hope this answers most of you at least.
On the post: Forget The FCC: Should We Be Looking To The FTC To Save An Open Internet?
Dear Mikey
On the post: US Patent Office Grants 'Photography Against A White Background' Patent To Amazon
Re: Re: Re: Re:
On the post: US Patent Office Grants 'Photography Against A White Background' Patent To Amazon
Re: Re:
I am an examiner. The thing that most of you don't seem to understand is that what matters is what is in the claim(s). Before Mikey and Timmy and whoever else at Techdirt go off on your little anti-patenting, anti-USPTO tirades maybe you should figure out just what a patent is and what it isn't. Then maybe you all wouldn't sound like idiots thinking you can do my job better than me :)
On the post: US Has A 'Secret Exception' To Reasonable Suspicion For Putting People On The No Fly List
Re:
On the post: US Has A 'Secret Exception' To Reasonable Suspicion For Putting People On The No Fly List
On the post: NY Prosecutor: Annoying Someone Is A Criminal Act, Especially If It's In Writing
Restraining orders for everyone!
Remember, you do not have the right to not be offended. The sooner people re-learn this, the better off all of us will be.
On the post: DOJ Flips Out That Evidence Gathered Via FISA Orders Might Be Made Available To Defendants
Re: Re: Amendment
Lets face it, We The People need to do something to reign in our government that seeks to use our legal system as a tool to keep us in line while they run roughshod over us and our rights. Ultimately I am trying to start a dialogue on how do we fight back and take back control of our country and our lives?
On the post: DOJ Flips Out That Evidence Gathered Via FISA Orders Might Be Made Available To Defendants
Amendment
No person, or their legal representative, shall be denied access, for any reason, to any evidence against their person as a right of due process. Further, the right of full disclosure of any lawful decision, being fundamental to the function of a civil society, shall not be infringed.
Its a rough draft, but the idea is that evidence, as anyone might expect, must be disclosed. That is fundamental to an effective defense, and one that should be reinforced. The "For any reason" clause really is meant to say the government cannot rely in evidence that they aren't willing to disclose, as that clearly violates due process. And finally, getting rid of secret courts is a no-brainer. Americans have a fundamental right, in my opinion, to know what their government is up to, free from redactions or other techniques employed to reduce the understanding of the public for the decisions that they are bound to.
On the post: Los Angeles Police Department Claims EVERY License Plate Is Part Of An Investigation
Find/Replace All
You have to admire how every level of government works together to feed us all the same line of non-sense. So I have to wonder how much the NSA has an interest in the LAPD winning in the courts on this. Even though this is a State issue and any ruling would likely be at that level, I have to imagine a win here would have the NSA a little concerned about a similar outcome in some of their pending litigation in the federal courts. Their argument is essentially the same, that they need all this data because it might be relevant someday, maybe. Oh, and we can't talk about it because privacy is important and stuff. And Terrorism.
On the post: University Yanks Professor's Email Access After He Criticizes School Chancellor, Compares His Statements To School Shootings
I'll say it again
On the post: Appeals Court Upholds Life Prison Sentence For Iraqi 'Terrorist' Caught In One Of The FBI's Own Terrorist Plots
Pre-Crime is not an Actual-Crime
This feels very "Minority Report" to me. Except this is real life, not the movies.
On the post: NSA FOIA Response Claims Data On Vendor Contracts 'Unsearchable'
Genius
And even if it's not true, and they don't actually keep all this stuff in paper files, how do we really know? They can say it all they want, and it gives them an excuse. Pretty good way to keep people from getting information when they can't just say "disclosing our contractor information is a grave risk to national security".
Ok, so maybe it isn't genius level stuff, but clearly the people trying to withhold all the NSA data aren't completely stupid either.
On the post: Facebook Needs To Learn It Can't Teach Tolerance By Acting As An Overzealous Censor
No Right
You don't have that right. No one has given it to you, and it certainly isn't inherent to life or society.
If something offends you, you can leave or walk away, you can go to a different website even, you can change the channel on the television. But I don't see that you have the right to prohibit me from viewing something you don't agree with.
On the post: President Obama Says He Had No Idea His Own NSA Was Spying On Angela Merkel
I'm not sure why this is all that incredible. Obama doesn't hold anyone accountable for anything, unless he is blaming Bush and the Republicans for his latest screw-up. He believes he can just campaign his way through every problem, and that is easier than admitting he made a bad decision to keep incompetent people on the job.
Besides, if he fired someone, the government would get smaller and he doesn't want that either.
So yeah, not that incredible. Par for the course really.
On the post: Claim Of '54 Terrorist Attacks Thwarted' By NSA Continues To Spread Despite Lack Of Evidence
DC Metro Area
Now, we already know that various agencies have been fed information from other agencies and used that data to basically fabricate a reason to investigate people, leading to arrest, in order to hide how that data was actually discovered.
So I have to wonder, of those two stories I recall reading about, if they are part of that "54 Terrorists stopped" number the NSA keeps telling us about. If this is the case, how many of those attacks were basically encouraged by our own government in order to help the NSA have their so-called success. They have tried again and again to sell us on the need for their activities, I just can't put it past them to do something like this.
On the post: Appeals Court Says Feds Need To Get A Warrant To Attach GPS Device On A Car
How much is on the Courts?
But, I also have to wonder how much has to do with the courts as well? Many courts seem to be backed up with cases, and judges love to clear their dockets. So adding warrants to a judges docket has the potential, I would think, to back things up even more. That means more waiting for everyone. Hard to say how much this factors in, but it is my $0.02 worth.
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