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Patents United States

Mistakes Found in 98% of US Patents 182

Posted by ScuttleMonkey 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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Mistakes Found in 98% of US Patents More

Mistakes Found in 98% of US Patents

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  • a trivial? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 22, 2006 @12:38AM (#14530781)
    What's a trivial, and where can I get one?
    Is it like a tribble?

  • That's funny (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 22, 2006 @12:40AM (#14530791)
    98% of patents are mistakenly granted too!

    • Well you should watch out for the IP lawyers that handled the 98% of the patents.

      Or maybe disbar the IP lawyers that handled the 2% of the patents. :-)

  • Breaking News (Score:5, Funny)

    by ironwill96 ( 736883 ) on Sunday January 22, 2006 @12:40AM (#14530792) Homepage Journal
    In other breaking news, Jimmy Hoffa was found today on a park bench clutching a newspaper whose headline read "Sun found to be hot!" and "Sky really is blue!".

    Patents..wrong..who would've thunk it?
    • Patents..wrong..who would've thunk it?
      Why limit it to patents? 98% of everything contains mistakes. Even grammar Nazi flames usually have some sort of error if you look hard enough. Whoopdie-doo.

  • The sky is falling (Score:5, Funny)

    by Lacit ( 909742 ) on Sunday January 22, 2006 @12:40AM (#14530794) Homepage
    Whoa, you mean people actually read patents?

  • Disappointed (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ilyanep ( 823855 ) on Sunday January 22, 2006 @12:41AM (#14530800) Journal
    I'm disappointed that they didn't offer up any examples. Of course it would be highly embarrassing to whoever filed it, and it would be a bad idea legally, but it'd be interesting to see how badly some people screwed up.
    • Of course it would be highly embarrassing to whoever filed it, and it would be a bad idea legally, but it'd be interesting to see how badly some people screwed up.

      Why would it be a bad idea? You're just taking a document and pointing out what you believe is a fallacy.

      Is it illegal for me to criticize laws Congress passes or things the President says?
      • Is it illegal for me to criticize laws Congress passes or things the President says?

        No, but it does make you un-American and a communist.

    • You mean like... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Dr. Eggman ( 932300 ) on Sunday January 22, 2006 @12:56AM (#14530852)
      http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PT O1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm &r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6,960,975.WKU.&OS=PN/6,960,975&RS =PN/6,960,975 [uspto.gov]

      For it's defyance of the laws of physics?

      or...

      http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PT O1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm &r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6,368,227.WKU.&OS=PN/6,368,227&RS =PN/6,368,227 [uspto.gov]

      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)

      • Re:You mean like... (Score:5, Funny)

        by flyingsquid ( 813711 ) on Sunday January 22, 2006 @01:16AM (#14530937)
        Interesting patent indeed...

        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."

      • ... patent swinging on a swing.

        Does this mean I can become a licensed swinger?
  • The vast majority are trivial errors, most of them the fault of the USPTO

    You mean errors while transcripting? Or do they intentionally introduce errors just because they get a kick out of it?
    • It's as if the patent office is run by slashdotters who want to make it so broken that patents are just done away with completely.

  • No kidding, Captain Obvious (Score:5, Informative)

    by Compulawyer ( 318018 ) on Sunday January 22, 2006 @12:45AM (#14530814)
    That's why the USPTO has something called a "Certificate of Correction." Many of the mistakes are allowed to remain because it isn't worth the cost of filing for correction. I'll be the first to admit that many others are there because of a lack of due care. However, careful practitioners have at least one other person (more often two other people) besides the drafter proofread the application before it is sent to the PTO and the drafter also proofs the published patent if the application is allowed to issue. Despite what the linked article claims, this is NOT an appropriate activity to be offshored. It requires not only careful reading but mastery of both the English language and the technical terms of art. The USPTO is much like a computer in at least one respect - it follows the GIGO rule for data processing.

    • Re:No kidding, Captain Obvious (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Despite what the linked article claims, this is NOT an appropriate activity to be offshored. It requires not only careful reading but mastery of both the English language and the technical terms of art.

      What makes you think the proof-readers in India lack the above qualifications? English is the main language used for official communication in India (unlike other countries like China, Japan, etc.), and the people doing these types of jobs, probably have had all their education in English.
      • On the other hand, maybe they won't have those skills. Hard to say, because once you offshore something like this your control of it becomes sketchy at best. And I'm sure that those Indian companies will maintain tight security, so that all those ideas and inventions that flowed from American inventors wouldn't happen to, you know, end up somewhere unintended. No, the GP is correct: offshoring the vetting of patent applications is a baaaaaad idea. Really, sending important information of any kind to foreign
      • Experience with Indian proofreaders and patent drafters. Simply put, been there - done that. Horrible results, in my experience. Then again, I've had the same experience with others who use English as a second (or third, or more) language. I have found good patent drafters who spoke English as a second language, but only a very few.
      • What makes you think the proof-readers in India lack the above qualifications? English is the main language used for official communication in India (unlike other countries like China, Japan, etc.), and the people doing these types of jobs, probably have had all their education in English.

        How many Indians understand US dialect and idiom?
  • Did you also know that 98% of Slashdot summaries have errors??

    Seriously though, I doubt there are many legal documents that are 100% "perfect".
    • Did you also know that 98% of Slashdot summaries have errors??

      really? I thought all of them had!

      (the above line is a joke. If you don't get it, feel free to "-1, troll" away.)

  • Consider the Source (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Stultsinator ( 160564 ) on Sunday January 22, 2006 @12:46AM (#14530823)
    As with everything you read, please consider the source. In this case, the sole source of the facts here is a firm that specializes in support services for patents. That's not to say that their findings are incorrect, but you should do your own research before quoting or taking other action based on their results.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • but you should do your own research before quoting or taking other action based on their results.

      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)

    by Aurisor ( 932566 ) on Sunday January 22, 2006 @12:48AM (#14530831) Homepage
    I find it absolutely impossible to believe that people are incapable of writing a single sentance without making a mistake.

    • Re:are you serious? (Score:5, Funny)

      by William Robinson ( 875390 ) on Sunday January 22, 2006 @01:11AM (#14530918)
      The mistakes are found by lawyers... :)

      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..."

    • You do know that you spelled "sentence" wrong, right?

  • Another thing. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Eightyford ( 893696 ) on Sunday January 22, 2006 @12:48AM (#14530832) Homepage
    Do you want to know another thing that I think is wrong with the patent system? You do? Great. I think patents are too expensive for the average individual and too cheap for the average corporation. Too bad I don't have any suggestion to make the patent system better.

    • Re:Another thing. (Score:1, Informative)

      by staedtler_36 ( 940353 )
      Yes I completely agree. If you don't work for a company that will fund you and take over the patent rights anyways its very expensive to do it yourself. That means you either have to fund it yourself, around 10,000 - 15,000 last time I checked, or try to convince some VC or bank to fund and then they will get part of your idea.

      There should be simpler ways to file patents for the average individual who has an idea and wants to protect it with a well written patent.
    • Gee, that's easy.

      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.
    • "Too bad I don't have any suggestion to make the patent system better."

      Damn... If you did, you could patent it.
    • as a small entity (individual) you can file a patent with about 100 bucks, to preserver your priority date, and have a year to raise the 600 dollars needed for a regular app fee

      u write the patent yourself

      if you cant figure out how to write patnet your self,or are to lazy, u don't deserve it

      a patent is a lot of work, but any ordinary person who can write a coherent paragraph should be able to figure out how to do it

      In fact, writing a patnet would be a good subsitute for a college degree - about an equiv amo

      • Re:not really (Score:3, Funny)

        by wik ( 10258 )
        >if you cant figure out how to write patnet your self,or are to lazy, u don't deserve it

        QED.

        There are at least nine spelling, grammar, and punctuation mistakes in the quoted sentence.
        • and yr point is ?
          did these errors in any way prevent u from grasping my point ?
          does the hypocrisy of writing an error laden screed in any way detract from the logic of the argument ?

          i like writing like that cauze there is always some pedant can't c the forest for the trees...or maybe im just lazy meself
    • what if the mistake was within the system, like Machlup wrote in 1958

      Get organised so your vouice will get heard.
      http://lists.ffii.org/mailman/listinfo/us-parl [ffii.org]
    • I think patents are too expensive for the average individual and too cheap for the average corporation.

      Hmmm. What to do? What to do? If only there were some way to charge big corporations a much higher fee [uspto.gov] that they charge individuals.

      (The real money, of course, not in the PTO fees, but in the lawyers' fees to write up the patent and get it allowed. Raising the large entity fees by 10x would improve on half this issue, but the individuals still would have trouble affording a lawyer/agent.)

  • One of the mistakes found: (Score:5, Funny)

    by 88NoSoup4U88 ( 721233 ) on Sunday January 22, 2006 @12:53AM (#14530847)
    but approximately 2 percent of the patents examined had errors that weakened the core claims of the patent itself.

    Patent Number : US6123456
    Issue Date : 12/23/2003
    Patent Title : System and method for providing exsellent spelchecking.

  • They're paid to process. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    From a recent New Yorker article detailing R.I.M.'s patent problems and "patent trolls", "since the office (the patent office) is funded by patent fees, as opposed to getting its budget from Washington, it has a financial incentive to process applications as quickly, rather than diligently, as possible".

    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.

  • How are they arriving at this conclusion? Did they go through and review every single patent that's been issued? I doubt that somehow. I'd appreciate it if TFA made it more clear how they ended up with this statistic. My initial guess would be that they simply sampled a subset of the issued patents, and decided that this was representative of the entire body of issued patents.
  • I have invented a new method of finding patent mistakes which is more accurate and shows that 100% of patents have mistakes.
    • But don't patent it, otherwise your patent will have a mistake and your conclusion can no longer be supported.

      But, if the invention is wrong, then your numbers are wrong and your patent may still work.

      But then.....

      Can't cope, brain oozing out of ears. Must go and focus on something else.... Perpetual motion machine design is easier.

  • Non-Issue (Score:2, Informative)

    by Saeed al-Sahaf ( 665390 )
    The findings from a recent look by Itellevate, a firm that offers support services to intellectual property lawyers, claim that most of these errors a trivial...

    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.

    • Apparently, not only did you not RTFA, you couldn't even be bothered to read the summary correctly. Congratulations! You may have a prosperous future ahead of you working in the IP industry!

  • Lesser of two evils (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 22, 2006 @01:06AM (#14530895)
    Laugh all you want, but you really have two choices in the matter. As an examiner, we get on average somewhere near 25 hours a case. That's it. Pick one of the following:

    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)

      by Feanturi ( 99866 ) on Sunday January 22, 2006 @07:44AM (#14532060)
      So then all that has to be done when a patent is questioned is to run it through a spell-checker. If it contains perfect spelling then we can assume the patent is groundless in various ways and should come under further scrutiny. If it's riddled with spelling errors then it can be assumed that all other due dilligence has been done and the patent should stand.

      Can I patent that?

  • Here's a Real Example of a "trivial" Mistake (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Compulawyer ( 318018 ) on Sunday January 22, 2006 @01:10AM (#14530914)
    In Chef America, Inc. v. Lamb-Westin, Inc. [georgetown.edu] the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (the US Appeals court that hears all appeals in patent cases) found US Patent No. 4,761,290 [uspto.gov] to be not infringed because the claim used the word "to" instead of "at." Quoth the Court:

    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)

    by shoolz ( 752000 ) on Sunday January 22, 2006 @01:13AM (#14530928) Homepage
    "Intellevate has developed proprietary tools that automate part of the proofreading process and has built a team of legal assistants in India who are thoroughly trained and specialise in proofreading services," said Steinberg

    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...
  • all those patent lawyers probably graduated from the colleges that are turning out barely literate graduates... convenient seque
  • From what it's saying 2% are definately invalid and 96% of the rest are legally questionable. Given the state of our legal system the majority of the patents may not hold up in court. Why does this matter? Possibly legal chaos. Every lawyer in the country could get rich trying to sort the mess out. If half the companies sue the other half of the companies in an effort to invailidate their patents we're talking legal gridlock. People may not live long enough to see legitimate cases come to trial. Hard to say
  • ...we'd all be drinking a lot of smoothies right now.

    The findings from a recent look by Itellevate, a firm that offers support services to intellectual property lawyers, claim that most of these errors a trivial but approximately 2 percent of the patents examined had errors that weakened the core claims of the patent itself.

    "Most of these errors a trivial," eh? I'll bet they a! And it's Intellevate [intellevate.com], not Itellevate.

    How can we expect 10,000-word patent applications and their appendant illustrat

    • How can we expect 10,000-word patent applications and their appendant illustrations to be free from even trivial errors, when a 65-word story can't even use correct grammar or get the subject's name right?

      Because a 65 word story cannot hope to achieve anything more than a Slashdotting. A patent can hope to cripple an entire industry.

  • Export Restrictions and Offshoring Proofreading (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Compulawyer ( 318018 ) on Sunday January 22, 2006 @01:46AM (#14531045)
    By the way - I think it is a universally accepted axiom (at least as universally accepted as the Theory of Evolution - but that's a topic for another post ...) that it is better to catch errors at the beginning of a process to prevent errors in the finished product than it is to perform quality control at the end of the process to attempt to fix the end product. In the US (and some other countries) you need a license to file your patent application in a foreign country. Generally the license is automatically granted when the filing is confirmed by the USPTO, but nevertheless you still need the license. If you send an unfiled patent application for an invention created in the US out of the country for proofreading, you may have violated export control laws.
  • 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.

    It seems like it might be in this firm's interest to find the tiniest error in each patent. Even grammatical or typographical errors like the wrong number of spaces after a period or a sentence without a verb in it (like this one). Als
  • I translate technical Japanese patents and the great majority are so poorly written as to be unintelligible in parts.

  • What else is new? (Score:3, Informative)

    by SubliminalVortex ( 942332 ) on Sunday January 22, 2006 @02:17AM (#14531145)
    Having worked for attorneys in the past, I knew how important it was, not even in case law to ensure that wording was perfected, but even in professional correspondence.

    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.

    • Hindsight

      Abstract

      A method of improving accuracy by permitting the passage of time, until a sufficient amount of time has passed whereby the user has gained a broader understanding of the subject matter and may, at that future time, perceive flaws in previous work and correct those flaws with improved perspective.
  • Lawsuits :-) for everyone! I bet is a law firm had stock, they would increase by like 5% right now.

  • This just in... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Geekenstein ( 199041 ) on Sunday January 22, 2006 @02:47AM (#14531259)
    Company that offers help with filing patents finds that 98% of people filing patents really should hire them. More at 11.

  • I wonder if some of the 'mispellings' that may have been introduced into these patents have anything to do with 'source code' that may have been submitted as part of the patent process.

    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


  • 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.
  • The other 2% get rejected.

  • This is a marketing claim! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cimetmc ( 602506 ) on Sunday January 22, 2006 @05:09AM (#14531661)
    Please when you read the article, don't forget who is behind the study.
    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)

    by necro2607 ( 771790 ) on Sunday January 22, 2006 @07:14AM (#14531979)
    78.35% of statistics made up on the spot!

    This and other exciting stories tonight at 11...
  • It matters not one whit whether a patent has a "mistake" in it. Think of the two possibilities:
    • (#1)Nobody notices the mistake. Nothing happens.
    • (#2)Somebody notices the mistake. Three possibilities:
      • The person is the patent holder, he can do nothing, or file a correction. Big whoop.
      • It's somebody else, a disinterested party-- they'll get a mild chuckle out of it.
      • It's somebody else, someone interested in breakng the patent. This gives them one more arrow in their quiver.

    In any case, the mistake of

  • So What? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by thebdj ( 768618 ) on Sunday January 22, 2006 @12:28PM (#14533262) Journal
    We are talking about 98% of patents containing some error. Now, 2% have serious errors and that is something that should be addressed but the rest of it is just bullshit. First off, what are these errors? Are they small grammar and spelling issues? Hell, half the people on slashdot cannot use the English language properly. Let's put this into perspective. We are talking about finding an error in a specification to a patent which can sometimes run 50 pages in length. As everyone is so fond of pointing out, the Patent Office has a large backlog of patents and there are complaints of patents getting issued that should not be. So imagine how poor examination would be if they needed to proofread the entire thing for grammar and spelling errors which have no real effect on the patent itself.

    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.

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