FTC to Examine Patent Application Process 307
Armchair Dissident writes "The BBC is running an article that suggests that the FTC is to look into the way that patents are reviewed and issued. If this article is correct it seems that many guesses as to how patents are issued were correct; with 95% of patent applications being approved. They may also address the issue of "patent trolls"."
Patent Trolls? (Score:5, Funny)
Patent Trolls, Patent Insightfuls (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Patent Trolls, Patent Insightfuls (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Patent Trolls, Patent Insightfuls (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Patent Trolls, Patent Insightfuls (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Patent Trolls, Patent Insightfuls (Score:5, Funny)
Don't forget Overrated, Informative, and Interesting you insesitive clod!
Re:Patent Trolls, Patent Insightfuls (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Patent Trolls? (Score:2)
Patent trolls? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Patent trolls? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Patent trolls? (Score:5, Insightful)
You ask me, that's problem number one that the patent system needs to solve. In the dot-com age it becomes especially important because the rapid pace of invention holds some real potential for destroying the prior art defense (i.e. if you and I both build a 15-click shopping tool for an online store within a very short time of one another, but one of us patents it first, how will the other successfully argue prior art?)
For a moment I thought this was good... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's good to know the biggest corps best businessmen are going to decide on the next generation of patent law.
Re:For a moment I thought this was good... (Score:5, Insightful)
We sure won't get a great patent system out of these guys, but we may get a better one. After all, most companies don't bother enforcing patents violated by individuals - they enforce those violated by other companies. That means that while MS, eBay, et al. are some of the worst abusers of patent law, they're also the some of the hardest hit by the abuses of others.
This is a limited case of enlightened self-interest, which is why I'm optimistic we'll see some improvement. Even reducing the number of bad patents by 5% or eliminating some of the worst classes of them would be a big step.
Re:For a moment I thought this was good... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:For a moment I thought this was good... (Score:4, Insightful)
Same goes for engineers. The patent process is a business and legal issue, not an engineering problem.
Re:For a moment I thought this was good... (Score:5, Insightful)
When they started handing out countless thousands of obvious and non-novel patents, it became an engineering problem. As in: A lot of engineers now have a problem getting their jobs done because they can no longer use the most straightforward and obvious approaches to implementing their projects.
Re:For a moment I thought this was good... (Score:3, Interesting)
Anyway, you're exactly correct. The patent system is being abused by large corporations (not all) to stifle innovation. It's telling that Microsoft argues that it needs to be able to innovate, but in reality they really mean that they want to control all innovation. Entirely contradictory to a 'free market'.
no overall.... (Score:5, Insightful)
No political power = zero economic power.
Zero economic power = modern technofeudalistic serfdom for the producers,and getting worse daily.
I am constantly amazed how so many really *quite smart* people haven't bingoed to this yet.
Re:no overall.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Under the banner of IT you have, hardware techs, IT managers, Database administrators, Windows Administrators, Unix administrators, Web designers, 20 kinds of programmers that are currently marketable, 10 kinds of programmers that aren't, and anyone else who considers themselves to be "knowledge worker." To borrow a term from Gates.
And the best part... each one of them has their own cyber religion that conflicts with the next. It's never a good idea to get that many kinds of IT people in a room, let alone working together for their common interests.
Might cause the Universe to implode.
The closest thing we have to a general techies union is
Re:For a moment I thought this was good... (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe they should ask Academics who are less invested in and benifited from the current patent process. Find people who are technically savy, but at least a bit removed from the patent process. Granted, many Academics recieve patents and benifit from the patent system, but I'd put money on there being fewer patent trolls amongst academics than amoung corporate executives. At least academics have obligations other than making fat sacks of cash for stock holders.
Re:For a moment I thought this was good... (Score:4, Interesting)
The modifications made to the patent system to adjust it to assembly line production were totally wrong-headed, and additions made on top of that have merely made things worse.
Re:For a moment I thought this was good... (Score:3, Insightful)
After the Enron/Worldcom/etc issues, I have a hard time trusting execs from companies to make decisions that could possibly effect smaller businesses. Look at Walmarts business practices. Imagine if they had the ability (other then current political) to change the way the law looks at labor. I have a feeling they would n
Re:For a moment I thought this was good... (Score:4, Insightful)
Right now I see the equivalent of getting the movie, book, software, and record industries together to write copyright law. Which in fact, is what has been happening all through the 20th century, and it's consistently fucked over the public.
No matter how enlightened their self interest is, it's THEIR self interest. The patent system is supposed to satisfy the self interest of the PUBLIC.
Re:For a moment I thought this was good... (Score:3, Insightful)
How about some respected economists? I think the discussion needs some objectivity. You ask only a small portion of the business world, and they're likely going set themselves up to profit later. Not that there's anything inherently evil about that, but the conflict of interest should be obvious.
But maybe this is just my kneejerk reaction. It certainly would be helpful to ask a cross-section of the business what things surrounding patents currently hurt them.
Re:For a moment I thought this was good... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:For a moment I thought this was good... (Score:3)
Everyone from every side has an agenda, so we should have some effort to represent every agenda.
Hopefully there are some other people taking part other than those listed. The article may have only mentioned them because the writer believes his audience is uninformed or stupid.
Re:For a moment I thought this was good... (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, these companies file patents that should not be granted. I would suggest that file them knowing that these patents shouldn't be granted. Having a large library of patents means that when they are challenged they have the option of cross-licensing patents they hold to make law-suits go away.
Unfortunately we are in a situation where bogus patents get granted, and
Not Everyone Understands the Patent Situation (Score:5, Informative)
Finally! (Score:4, Funny)
"Outlook Positive"!]
Re:Finally! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Finally! (Score:2)
Re:Finally! (Score:3, Funny)
now, IANAL, but I think that this Dissection of a magic 8-ball [ofb.net] may be a violation of the DMCA. The information within has clearly been used to illegally modify [ofb.net] the magic 8-ball to serve a new sinister purpose, which is a clear violation of the Patriot Act (they may be used to carry hidden subversive messages for terrorists). Please turn yourself in to the relevant authorities at once.
Have a nice day
Finally- (Score:5, Insightful)
But note the end, which states -
"The last major changes to patent law were in 1952 and there is no legislation before Congress which means that ideas like a patented method for picking up a box by bending your knees may well continue for some time. "
So let's not hold our breath, eh?
Re:Finally- (Score:5, Funny)
Until they patent breathing through biological devices that exchange oxygen for carbon dioxide...
NeoThermic
Re:Finally- (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Finally- (Score:3, Interesting)
They just got boned by that Eolas thing where loading a plugin in a browser was patented.
The only time I've ever head of them using their patents is over the use of FAT in compact flash devices, which seems to me to be a patent describing a specific behaviour of a specific type of filesystem, rather than the vague transparent plugin thing.
This isn't even about changing patent law, just the application and granting process, which I believe the FTC has direct control
The real news (Score:4, Interesting)
And did anyone else read the last part as "parent" troll instead of "patent" troll? Or is that just me?
Pay me royalties! (Score:5, Funny)
1. Make a Patent.
2. Enforce the Patent.
3. Profit!!
Re:Pay me royalties! (Score:5, Funny)
1. Make a Patent.
2. Sock patent away in filing cabinet until 1 year prior to expiration and concept is in widespread use.
3. Enforce the Patent.
4. Profit!!
Re:Pay me royalties! (Score:3, Insightful)
1. Get a bunch of your attorney buddies to make a pseudo-corporation for holding IP.
2. Convince a large group of penniless patent holders that their IP is worthless, buy patents at bargain prices.
3. Wait until 11th hour of patent term.
4. Sue the hell out of everyone directly or indirectly related to the patent.
(even people that the original patent holder merely said "hello" to).
5. If you scare up enough out-of-court settlements for a fraction of those cases: Profit!
Slashspeak. (Score:3, Insightful)
In other words, patents owned by anyone you don't like, or agree with. That is what troll means around here, isn't it?
hopefully... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:hopefully... (Score:2)
Simply put: being too specific in a patent means that it's easy for a competitor to use your invention simply by changing a minor component or feature.
Re:hopefully... (Score:3, Interesting)
And making the patent too general means that the language is ambiguous and meangingless, leading to conflicting understanding and more money for lawyers. For software usually, despite what the patent office likes to say, there is no happy medium, leading to all the problems patents currently cause.
---
It's wrong that an intellectual property creator should not be rewarded for their work.
It's equally wrong that an IP creator should be rewarded too many times for the one piece of work, for exactly the
Re:hopefully... (Score:3, Insightful)
general != ambiguous
I agree with you in general, but not for software.
The software industry is rife with ambiguous terminology; many names for the same things, poorly defined names, different meanings for the same label, different meanings in different era's, deliberate obsfucation by marketing people etc. etc.
It's not surprising. Software is soft - it can be anything people want it to be and without a physical reality to keep people grounded it has become a mess.
Look at what the pattern people are t
Troll Checklist... (Score:5, Funny)
So... who's left to troll?
A tautology (Score:5, Interesting)
"But we have seen instances where companies use that monopoly in an anti-competitive way"
Doesn't a monopoly imply a lack of competition? This would seem to go without saying.
Re:A tautology (Score:5, Informative)
It is not illegal to have a monopoly. It is illegal to use your monopoly in certain ways to squeeze more money out of your customers or to stop competitors from appearing.
Re:A tautology (Score:3, Insightful)
But from the remainder of that paragraph
"... sometimes to prevent other products from getting to market, to prevent people from sharing ideas and to prevent the kind of innovation that the patent system is really trying to spur on"
What they're saying (and I agree with) is that although there isn't anything wrong with having a monopoly, you can't stop competing products from entering the market. In other words, patents are being used as a big stick to threaten those who would enter your (previously monop
Re:A tautology (Score:2)
Stop rewarding the damned parasites! (Score:5, Insightful)
court instead of slithering off to drag someone else in front of a Judge. This would kill an industry built around threatening people
with huge fees stone dead.
It would no longer matter if "Shithead inc."
with their newly acquired patent on "sitting the right way around on a toilet" threatened a shelter for blind puppies with legal action, since Fido and pals could count on a less than gallant army of equally unscrupulous lawfims would work on no-win no-fee no-payout basis to defend them.
Mom and Pop stump-jumper could simply ignore the SCO's of the World and go about their business as the legal vultures and patent maggots preyed upon each-other.
Why the hell should any company (even Microsoft) have to pay out to defend themselves against these parasites?
Re:Stop rewarding the damned parasites! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Stop rewarding the damned parasites! (Score:2)
Re:Stop rewarding the damned parasites! (Score:4, Insightful)
Say I invent something, an actual unique new device. A machine that makes super-fast transistors out of recycled chewing gum or something.
Then sleaze-co starts using my invention, I try to sue. They bring a barrage of buzzword-spouting techies and slick lawyers to confuse the hell out of the judge and jury.
Without a billion-dollar war chest, I'd be risking bankruptcy by patenting my invention.
The legal system is an adversarial one. The best fighter wins, and that person is not necessarily in the right.
Would you want to sue Microsoft, knowing you were right and they were wrong, but realizing if the judge doesnt see it that way you'd wind up millions of dollars (or pounds) in the hole?
How could you sue? (Score:3, Informative)
You have to patent something *before it's disclosed to other people*. That's the point. It gives you protection. The way the patent system is *supposed* to work you're also supposed to provide evidence that you've developed said invention, notebooks, diagrams with dates, times etc.
In this case, you patent invention, Sleaze-Co steals it, you sue and win because you have the patent and Sleaze Co pays your legal bill as well as the damages.
Look out Forgent and Microsoft! (Score:5, Interesting)
Case in point
Microsoft and their double click of death [slashdot.org]
and
The guy who patented swinging in a swing? [slashdot.org]
ITS ABOUT TIME THIS WAS REVIEWED
Next patent (Score:4, Funny)
Maybe this will stop Process Patenting (Score:4, Funny)
This is just silly. It has to stop. (Score:3, Interesting)
The problem (Score:4, Interesting)
Belgium has solved this problem. They issue patents as easily as we can register copyrights. Got a dispute? Take it to the courts.
I like that system. Take the power out of the examiners hands altogether and let courts decide these issues. Yes I know courts already decide issues, but with the way courts invalidate patents, what is the point of the USPTO?
Sure someone will say that might favor big companies as they can afford patent litigation, but we know that getting rid of IP legal protection is not going to work.
We are not going to simply eliminate the patent process (although you can, by Congressional action, or by amending the Constitution). Any of you geeks who think this will happen are in fantasy-land. We simply need to take power out of the hands of the USPTO.
Another good effect of this would be that all those patent prosecution attorneys (aka patent scribes) would lose their jobs, quit the practice of law (since they only went to make more money than an engineer), and flood the engineering/ computer programming market. All the while the demand for patent litigators (more of a REAL lawyer than a patent scribe) would skyrocket.
That would at least stop the outsourcing of patent prosecution to India...
Re:The problem (Score:3, Interesting)
Well that is pretty much exactly what is happening in the US and it is NOT working.
And yes, though patents can protect the little guy, the little guy usually has no way to defend himself in court.
The BETTER way is to make the process work as it is supposed too. With patents being granted based on being unique, after proper investigation, and then easily overturned later if prior art is shown, without a lenghtly and costly cour battle, but merely by filing a petition and having the USPO do it's own i
Re:The problem (Score:2)
Can you please provide evidence that it is not working?
Yes, we have overly broad patents being issued. But if that is the way it's supposed to work it obviously can't be evidence of "NOT working."
We do have occasional lawsuits like BT patenting the internet or SBC patenting left frame navigation. It is my understanding that those have been quickly and thoroughly smacked down.
If there is lots of evidence out there I wou
Re:The problem (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The problem (Score:3, Interesting)
Sorry, I was thinking in terms of the big patent picture (ie. the process) and not just with reference to software patents (ie. what can be patented) even though I know it is near and dear to the hearts of many here
I agree with the FTC that something needs to be done to restrict the field of software patents.
Re:The problem (Score:2)
The BETTER way is to make the process work as it is supposed too. With patents being granted based on being unique, after proper investigation, and then easily overturned later if prior art is shown, without a lenghtly and costly cour battle, but merely by filing a petition and having the USPO do it's own investigation.
This is already the way the system works - just not to the desired degree. If you think that a patent is invalid you can file an
Re:The problem (Score:2)
That's basically what the US patent system does now. Remember, the USPTO makes no guarantee that the patent they issue is valid. They are doing an initial check for form and to weed out obviously invalid patents. They just don't have the resources to do any more.
patent trolls (Score:5, Insightful)
"patent troll (PAT.unt trohl) n. A company that purchases a patent, often from a bankrupt firm, and then sues another company by claiming that one of its products infringes on the purchased patent.. --adj."
Via The Word Spy http://www.wordspy.com/words/patenttroll.asp
Re:patent trolls (Score:3, Funny)
Sorry, FTC (Score:2)
ha! I'll have my lawyers contact your lawyers.
They did reject mine... (Score:2)
And yet, Rambus, Amazon, SCO and others can patent stuff like dirt, and get away with it.
Heh... (Score:3, Funny)
The article spells out the problem pretty plainly (Score:5, Interesting)
The National Academy of Sciences is calling for more funding for the patent office where 3,000 examiners handle 350,000 applications a year with an average of 17 to 25 hours to check on the validity of a patent application.
Businesses claim a lack of due diligence at this stage often results in patents being granted that should not see the light of day.
There you have it, the entire problem in a nutshell. Too much work, and not enough people.
And I have a solution.
Public review for patents. Open source meets patent reform.
Here's how the new system might work. Someone applies for a patent, and it gets posted to a website for public review.
That gives the public the ability to search for prior art. If prior art is found, even after the patent is granted...zap. The patent is invalid. And if the prior art is more than...say 5 years old, the idea is now public domain and no longer patentable.
Also, widen the definition of prior art. Best example of that I can think of off the top of my head is Intel patenting a method to detect overclockers. Measure the cpu clock versus an internal clock. Compare. If they differ by more than a small percentage, shut down. In other words, they managed to patent a binary counter. Bogus. Simply using an established widget in a new way shouldn't be patentable. No more Bezos "with a computer" patents.
And no patent should be granted for more than 5 years or so. This is important, otherwise we could wind up in a technological backwater. Small countries (with no extradition treaties with the US) would be the next Silicon Valley. You think you're being outsourced now? Just wait until you can't program at all in the US due to fear of litigation.
I think that it should be possible to have an idea, patent it, and make your million. But not at the expense of the entire tech sector.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to go double click something. ;^)
Weaselmancer
Re:The article spells out the problem pretty plain (Score:2, Informative)
See the american inventors protection act of 1999
Re:The article spells out the problem pretty plain (Score:4, Informative)
Thank you AC! Didn't know such a thing existed.
But after a quick read [bereskinparr.com], I found this:
All utility patent applications filed in the United States Patent and Trademark Office after November 29, 2000 will be published if an applicant does not expressly request on filing that the application not be published. An applicant may make a request for non-publication if (1) the applicant has not filed the application in any other country that publishes applications; and, (2) the applicant does not intend to file the application in any country that publishes applications.
So, it's a little bit better, but not by a whole lot. You can still hide your applications, and it doesn't take into account things already "in the system."
I still say that serious reform needs to take place. But it's nice to know that the law already sees it, AC.
Weaselmancer
Re:The article spells out the problem pretty plain (Score:2)
Re:The article spells out the problem pretty plain (Score:3, Insightful)
> with an average of 17 to 25 hours to check on the validity of a patent application
Wow, this seems off. They have 2-3 business days per patent? With that, there wouldn't be a problem-- anyone who has done a research project knows you can become a mini-expert on anything in 2 days.
But 3000 workers, 360,000 patents/year, that's 116 patents/year per person... at 24 wks/year 5 working days/wk (note the 2 weeks off for vacation), that's about 1 patent a day.
1/day is a lot different than 3 days per.
Re:The article spells out the problem pretty plain (Score:3, Insightful)
Plus, of course, the examiner has to be qualified in the field the patent is being applied for; you don't put civil engineer examiners in charge of applications for biotechnology inventions. So there are likely some even more overburdened examiners, since the load cannot be evenly distributed.
You also don't realize that this isn't a matter of looking
Re:The article spells out the problem pretty plain (Score:2)
Unless a request is made when a patent application is filed, an application will be published 18 months from its effective application date.
At this point members of the public have 2 months to submit publications for review. Perhaps the period should be extended to 4 or 6 months? That would allow more time for the word to spread throughout the industry about a particular application.
Re:The article spells out the problem pretty plain (Score:2)
And I have a solution.
Public review for patents. Open source meets patent reform
Yes, but that is not as far from reality as you might think. After the patent is issued it becomes publicly available. And if you can dig up any prior art that the stressed examiner missed, then the patent (or parts of it) will be rendered invalid.
This happens all the time. In particular when someone gets sued by the patent hold
Re:The article spells out the problem pretty plain (Score:3, Interesting)
As for your other suggestions, for the most part, they are already the law. Simply using an established widget in a new way is not patentable, unless it's novel and nonobvious.
Do you know that almost every single patent application is rejected the first time? Most of them are rejected a number of times. Then the applicants attempt to d
expensive law (Score:3, Interesting)
if, in the process of preparing the background for a patent application, you find that there IS previous work, what percentage do you think actually file the application?
My guess is around 5%....
Re:expensive law (Score:2)
If I understand things correctly, the patent review process isn't public. I don't even think there's an external review board. (Correct me if I am wrong.) So an applicant who finds prior art could obfuscate the claims in the application to circumvent a too-cursory review process.
So many things to talk about (Score:5, Insightful)
It's nice to see some optimism that expanding the examiner force should alleviate some of the problem.
And here's a suggestion for eliminating trolls:
Currently a large percentage of patents that go to trial (I remember reading 40-50%) are declared invalid. Why not, in those cases where a patent is declared invalid, require that the plaintiff cover legal fees of the defendant? If that were the case you had really better be sure that your patent was valid. Kind of a specialized "loser pays."
Write your Congressmen, especiall Republicans (Score:4, Interesting)
The push should be to limit software patents to 2-3 years so that we don't sound like anti-business commies. Follow it up with hiring good patent examiners and you're suggesting a good solution that moderate congressmen can safely support.
Re:Write your Congressmen, especiall Republicans (Score:3, Insightful)
Not all patents are software patents.
Re:Write your Congressmen, especiall Republicans (Score:3, Insightful)
You'll sound like an anti-WTO commie that way. WTO TRIPs requires that if you allow patents in a certain field, the conditions for patentability and the resulting granted monopoly must be the same as in all other fields where you grant patents.
Then again, TRIPs and WIPO also forbid software patents [slashdot.org] and the US doesn't care about that either...
reducto ad absurdum (Score:3, Funny)
Patent Trolling??? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Patent Trolling??? (Score:3, Funny)
I think it's more along the lines of:
"... a method of expansion of the extremities of the lower intestine via a procedure comprised of first elevating the upper torso in such a manner that the torso and legs are perpendicular, followed by pressure applied by the first and second digits of the left and right hands to the area adjacent to the opening..."
Public Comments? (Score:4, Interesting)
Another potential fix -- please post thoughts (Score:4, Interesting)
It is currently possible to request that a patent be reviewed by the USPTO. This does not require a lawsuit (or technically even a lawyer, though there is a need for a properly-formatted request).
There are two types of re-examination. They differ [findlaw.com] in several respects. One, inter partes, allows you to basically provide rebuttals to the filer's explanations, and the other ex parte, does not.
My thanks to Thalia [slashdot.org] for locating [uspto.gov] the associated fees on the USPTO website: inter partes costs $8800 and ex parte $2500. Both of these costs do not include legal fees, which Thalia estimated (for inter partes) at about $12,000.
The problem is that getting a patent runs about $1,000 (again, not including any legal fees). This tends to slant things towards people acquiring patents, as it is still more expensive to get a patent revoked.
The modification that I'd like to see made would involve *patent owners* having to pay ex parte or inter partes fees if it is determined that their patent was improperly approved. This means that groups like the EFF (and, with some work to make the process particularly easy, perhaps anyone) can initate re-examination requests while supplying prior art examples.
Such a change would encourage patent filers to ensure that their patents really are legitimate when filing (reducing the number of bogus patents), and would not financially penalize someone who knows of prior art and wants to fix the USPTO database (if anything, I'd like to see someone who successfully brings up an example of prior art and gets a patent revoked *paid* a small fee by the patent filer for their time).
This change would involve minimal changes to the system, and not much cost. There might be the issue of collecting from the patent owner, who might be unwilling to pay. I think that an eight-thousand dollar deposit per patent would probably be too weighty, so I'm not sure how to approach that detail yet. However, even if the USPTO needs additional funding to help cover costs of employees needing to review patents where the USPTO cannot collect from the patent filer, I think that we woudl be better off (furthermore, that individual could be barred from being issued future patents until they have paid off their existing dues).
Problem: this change would *have* to grandfather old patents, as companies and individuals would otherwise be liable for masses of money for bogus patents. Irritating as it is that those people were able to get away with such behavior, the system permitted bogus patents, and charging them fees for said patents now is not reasonable (nor would it be acceptable to many people).
I think that this is the only feasible approach to the problem. Trying to ensure that the USPTO never grants invalid patents would require that they maintain a huge staff of PhDs that are up on the bleeding edge in every area of research (and honestly, woudl be better off doing research instead of reviewing patents).
Thoughts?
Re: Another solution (Score:3, Insightful)
The solution is really simple:
1. Make it easier to get patents. Right now, patents are reviewed and issued as if the US PTO was the final arbiter of all truth in the universe. This is of course absurd. A patent should be nothing more than a claim that a
Let's get behind EFF and PubPat and get this mess (Score:3, Interesting)
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
High cost of US legislation (Score:3, Interesting)
The first point is not very easy to tackle, a lot of costs are put in the 'discovery' of every lawsuit. A US (patent attorney) colleague of mine said that that will not go away in the near future.
By means of example: a patent lawsuit in the Netherlands will cost you kEUR 20-50. At most. Germany, where you may have a little more quality, think about a factor 2-4 higher.
The second point should be easy to implement. Just copy the European Patent Convention, German Patent Law, Japanese patent law (based on the German patent law) or something alike. This system means you can kill the patent after granting with prior art. In an inter partes proceeding, which means you, as a person, will be a pary in the proceedings.
Re:why has it taken so long to be examined? (Score:2)
With statistics like that it's obvious that there is something wrong, just wonder why they've left it so long to fix it...
Not that I like the way the patent system works but I don't think that a high greenlight percentage by itself proves that something is wrong.
Rather, it proves that there is a common understanding between applicants and examiners what w
Re:95% accepted sounds wrong (Score:2)
I honestly don't know either way, but perhaps the patent examiners are rated on how many patents are granted? The 95% figure would make perfect sense in that case...
Re:95% accepted sounds wrong (Score:5, Informative)
How could this be fixed? Only hire experts in the field as examiners? Search google for each patent and trust the information that you get off the internet? Keep a big pile of old Scientific Americans, and Popular Science lying around at the PTO?
Re:Real solution... (Score:3, Insightful)
Excellent! Out of curiosity, who pays for the 15 years of concept-to-market research required to create new medicines? Because without that short-term monopoly on manufacturing new creations, no company will be stupid enough to invest hundreds of millions of dollars on a cure for cancer when their competitors will be able to make it themselve
Re:Real solution... (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, a big shakeup in pharmaceutical patents might be a good idea.
It's clear to me that the current system is not working well. It has many gross inefficiencies. Very few truly new treatments are being created. The ability of simple chemicals to fix things in a complex mechanism like the human body is vastly overrated, causing much pain and waste (do you fix most problems in your car with a pill in the gas tank?). Modern pharmaceutical companies sometimes bear more than a passing resemblance to the mo
Re:Real solution... (Score:3, Informative)