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Mistakes Found in 98% of US Patents
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Sun Jan 22, 2006 12:37 AM
from the attention-to-detail dept.
from the attention-to-detail dept.
Artem Tashkinov writes to tell us The Register is reporting that almost every US patent contains at least one mistake. The findings from a recent look by Itellevate, a firm that offers support services to intellectual property lawyers, claim that most of these errors are trivial but approximately 2 percent of the patents examined had errors that weakened the core claims of the patent itself.
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a trivial? (Score:3, Funny)
Is it like a tribble?
Re:a trivial? (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
That's funny (Score:5, Funny)
Breaking News (Score:5, Funny)
Patents..wrong..who would've thunk it?
The sky is falling (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The sky is falling (Score:2)
Disappointed (Score:4, Interesting)
You mean like... (Score:5, Informative)
For it's defyance of the laws of physics?
or...
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=P
This one; recanted because of a technicallity in its wording, even though it's trying to patent swinging on a swing. (Both links were off wikipedia)
Parent
Re:You mean like... (Score:5, Funny)
Space vehicle propelled by the pressure of inflationary vacuum state
Abstract
A space vehicle propelled by the pressure of inflationary vacuum state is provided comprising a hollow superconductive shield, an inner shield, a power source, a support structure, upper and lower means for generating an electromagnetic field, and a flux modulation controller. A cooled hollow superconductive shield is energized by an electromagnetic field resulting in the quantized vortices of lattice ions projecting a gravitomagnetic field that forms a spacetime curvature anomaly outside the space vehicle. The spacetime curvature imbalance, the spacetime curvature being the same as gravity, provides for the space vehicle's propulsion. The space vehicle, surrounded by the spacetime anomaly, may move at a speed approaching the light-speed characteristic for the modified locale.
The author is one Boris Volfson. Is that like a cool-ass name for a mad scientist or what? You can almost picture it: "Yes, Mister Bond, it is I, Dr. Boris Volfson, your old nemesis. Do not attempt to reach for your pistol- yes, I can see it quite clearly as one of my eyes has been replaced with an X-ray sensor. At any rate, it would be futile as my rib cage and cranium are reinforced with titanium plating."
Parent
Re:Disappointed (Score:3, Insightful)
That note would be private correspondence, not intended for you, and already protected in many ways. However patents are public documents, available to anyone who can read (and maybe pay a small fee.) There hardly can be any restriction on anyone expressing his opinion about a public document.
Re:Disappointed (Score:2)
The note could have been (mistakenly) addressed to me and then it would be intended for me. Does that make it OK if i was to publish the times your away and the fact your home is unlocked without anyone there? There is nothign ilegal about me doing so. There isn't any restiction on me expressing my o
No kidding, Captain Obvious (Score:5, Informative)
Re:No kidding, Captain Obvious (Score:2)
Re:No kidding, Captain Obvious (Score:2)
Consider the Source (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Consider the Source (Score:2)
Unless you don't care about the issue enough to do this (like me), or wish to use the article to reaffirm an already established opinion (most slashdotters).
are you serious? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:are you serious? (Score:5, Funny)
An old joke for your reference..
One day in Contract Law class, Professor Jepson asked one of his better students, "Now if you were to give someone an orange, how would you go about it?"
The student replied, "Here's an orange."
The professor was livid. "No! No! Think like a lawyer!"
The student then recited, "Okay, I'd tell him, 'I hereby give and convey to you all and singular, my estate and interests, rights, claim, title, calim and advantages of and in, said orange, together with all its rind, juice, pulp, and seeds, and all rights and advantages with full power to bite, cut, freeze and otherwise eat, the same, or give the same away with and without the pulp, juice, rind and seeds, anything herein before or hereinafter or in any deed, or deeds, instruments of whatever nature or kind whatsoever to the contrary in anywise notwithstanding..."
Parent
Another thing. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Another thing. (Score:2)
Make impersonal patents more expensive.
If you want to do it cheap, the guy who actually thought it up can lord it over your head for the next eighteen years.
If you want to hold your employee's invention for yourself, you need to pay more.
Re:not really (Score:3, Funny)
QED.
There are at least nine spelling, grammar, and punctuation mistakes in the quoted sentence.
One of the mistakes found: (Score:5, Funny)
Patent Number : US6123456 : 12/23/2003 : System and method for providing exsellent spelchecking.
Issue Date
Patent Title
They're paid to process. (Score:2, Insightful)
Examiners spend between 12 and 22 hours per patent, with an acceptance rate in the U.S. of ninety-five percent...no wonders there's so many errors.
Non-Issue (Score:2, Informative)
In other words, nothing to see here. Only adds to the shrillness factor of the anti-patent crowd. Many patents are questionable at best, but a 2% rate of "trivial" errors is a non-issue.
Re:Non-Issue (Score:2)
Lesser of two evils (Score:5, Interesting)
1. Find good prior art.
2. Find spelling mistakes.
My boss yells at me when I point out a spelling mistake on page 13 of the specification because it means I wasted my time doing something other than look for prior art.
Re:Lesser of two evils (Score:4, Funny)
Can I patent that?
Parent
Here's a Real Example of a "trivial" Mistake (Score:5, Interesting)
The sole issue in this appeal is the meaning of the following language in a patent claim: "heating the resulting batter-coated dough to a temperature in the range of about 400 F. to 850 F." The question is whether the dough itself is to be heated to that temperature (as the district court held), or whether the claim only specifies the temperature at which the dough is to be heated, i.e., the temperature of the oven (as the appellant contends). We agree with the district court that the claim means what it says (the dough is to be heated "to" the designated temperature range) and therefore affirm [the trial court's finding of non-infringement].
As most people know, dough heated to 850 degrees F. is no longer dough - it is charcoal. Not the most effective result for a process that is intended to result in the production of an edible substance.
BTW - the two law firms who tried this case are two of the top firms in the US. I am confident that the parties each spent hundreds of thousands of dollars arguing over a single word. And a very short word at that.
Actually touting Indian outsoursing as positive! (Score:3, Funny)
Um... ever tried to deal with a Dell or Symantec issue? Are you really trying to spin Indian support as a good thing? My word...
This is understandable because... (Score:2)
Disturbing considering the consequences (Score:2)
Export Restrictions and Offshoring Proofreading (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Export Restrictions and Offshoring Proofreading (Score:2)
What else is new? (Score:3, Informative)
I recall several instances where after transcribing a taped letter, verbatim (with my own spellings of the words transcribed, of course) that the attorney would read, cross out lines, add words, change statements, etc., until the letter that was transcribed was absolutely different from what was put on audio tape.
Then, when the 'final' product was rendered to the 'printed word', it was reviewed once again and had usually two or more changes, usually re-arranging a statement or adding some other synonym.
As one other Slashdotter respondent noted, it would be nice if everyone had learned to "clean up after themselves"; however, in this case, I think it is more of some person hoping that hindsight is "20/20". (I wonder if someone is going to actually patent 'hindsight'.)
It's interesting to see that someone is taking a 'janitorial' point of view on this mess. Not sure what can of worms it could open up potentially, but in the end, we usually end up paying for our mistakes.
Alright! (Score:2)
This just in... (Score:3, Insightful)
Misspellings? Of course not! (Score:2, Interesting)
From what I've seen in the past, some code had been outsourced to others where 'spelling', wasn't important with regards to the grammar of the language in which the program was developed, but in the 'comments' of the code, it was important to a future developer that might need to work with it.
Now, I've also seen some case
Wrong! 100% of patents are a mistake (Score:2)
It is a 100% mistake to assume that society won't get its needs successfully met without granting these useless monopolies that pretend to incentivize R&D and pretend to "protect" inventors.
This is a marketing claim! (Score:5, Insightful)
This is one of those typical statistical claims that people use to push their products. In this case, it is a company specialized in helping people to make their patent filings and they try to use statistics to scare people making them think that their patent filings might be invalid due to mistakes and thus hope they use the services of the company.
If you really want reliable statistics on the number of patent filings with mistakes and on the consequences off those mistakes, you should never trust such claims from a company who uses them purely for marketing purposes. This is a bit similar to Microsoft's TCO claims on Windows versus Linux.
I simply say that the source of these statistics is biased and as such the statistics are unreliable. They might or might or might not be true, but I would certainly not trust them.
Marcel
Other news headline (Score:3, Interesting)
This and other exciting stories tonight at 11...
So What? (Score:3, Insightful)
Let us also remember that the people who examine these patents are Engineers and Scientists. I do not know how many Engineers and Scientist you know, but many of the ones I do are not usually the best with the grammar and spelling; I sometimes have to read sentences several times over before I believe it sounds right, and even then it is usually still wrong in some way. The fact is the USPTO does not have the manpower or the time to be fixing every grammatical mistake that may occur in a patent, and I would venture a guess that it is frowned upon because it takes away from the actual prosecution on the merits of the application.
As a final note, many patents come in from Asian countries that are simply translated by machine and not proofread to their fullest extent. If a translation of this sort is very poor then examiners can inform the applicant that examination is not possible because of the poor grammar and request a more appropriate translation. I really wouldn't be surprised if many of the other patent offices have similar problems with minor errors.
Re:Indian proofreading? (Score:2, Interesting)
My experience says that Indians speak/write english better than citizens of many english speaking countries. This is one of biggest advantage they have over China. 'Vast pool of english educated people'.
Publishers like Wrox, O'Reilly etc had already established offices in India for editing and proofreading.
Now get your head out.
Re:Indian proofreading? (Score:2)
The hypocrisy would have made heads explode.
Re:How did they get this statistic? (Score:3, Insightful)
The important thing to remember is that the claim came from a group who gets paid to help people file patents. So someone who stands to make some cash if people start throwing their patent proofreading and prior arts searches to them said "Hey, 98% of patents have problems! Maybe you should find another group to look over your stuff!"
Re:How did they get this statistic? (Score:2)
Re:How did they get this statistic? (Score:2)
Re:Something else too... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Huh? (Score:2)
Re:98% of Slashdot postings have mistakes too. (Score:3, Insightful)
TFA says that these errors are significant and they weaken the core claims of the patent.
I don't understand how you can spout something contrary to the findings of a fairly lengthy review and get modded Insightful.
If you didn't learn it in grammar school, allow me to inform you that omitted punctuation is not just a "speed bump to reading." Omitted commas or other forms of punctuation can wildly change the interpretation of a sentence.
This is why local politics can devolve
Re:98% of Slashdot postings have mistakes too. (Score:2)
And, TFA says that while 98% of patents have errors, only 2% of patents have errors that jeapordize the claims. I think it is safe to say that most of those errors are mere speed bumps to reading.