Yes, of course, but it isn't useful for all of us, and I've never found anything better that way.
Like I said, if someone called me on the phone to inform me of pertinent prior art in a published application I was working on, I would be a fool not to at least take a look at it. However, this would have to be an informal method, meaning no papers could be filed by you. You'd just have to tell me over the phone where to find it, that's all.
All of the best prior art I have ever found has been in patents for my particular area. Nothing else has the details that I need to determine patentability. All of the published articles and what not in the non-patent literature are not that useful for me in my particular area. I can't speak for others.
You also may not know that all of us examiners have guns to our heads constantly. We have production requirements, and are measured every two weeks. They set goals for us, and if we are not at 95% of our goal at the end of any particular quarter, we receive an oral warning. If we are still not at 95% at the end of the second quarter, we receive a written warning. If we continue with less than 95% production, they begin firing procedures. Do you think you could work very well with that constant pressure to produce? Many examiners work extra hours, on weekends and the evenings, to meet production. My ex-wife used to sleep at work often. So, if you think we have it easy, you are uninformed and naive.
If it was critical to your business, then I would assume that you'd make it important enough to do that. All of the published applications are readily available, and they are even organized by class and subclass to make it easier for people to find them. We started publishing them to not only "harmonize" our laws with international law, but to also prevent "submarine" patents.
There are many fools at the USPTO.
I'm very aware of examiner workload. But that's no different (and in many ways easier) than the private sector. If my production starts to fall off, I'm out the door. Yes, I work with that constant pressure, that's what the working world is all about. When I owned my own businesses, it was far worse.
Real reform would make your life easier, not harder- people will find the prior art for you. But it reduces income stream to attorneys, so it will never happen.
You're just bitter that you didn't have adequate patent protection on your inventions. If you were accused of infringing someone else's patent, why didn't you file your own earlier if it was such a great idea? You'd be singing a different tune if you had crushed your competition with your patent portfolio.
Oh, OK, thanks for clearing that up. It always helps to have no actual facts before making a judgment.
You might want to re-read what I wrote. Their claims didn't actually cover our technology. And they managed to amend claims in their pending patents to cover our technology which had already been on the market for some years. The examiner didn't even bother looking.
"Fool" was your word for an examiner who wouldn't look at prior art brought to him by a third party.
But I thought the purpose of patents was to encourage innovation, not crush the competition? Have I got it wrong?dirkwright said:
In some of the IEEE magazines there is a summary list of recent patents. I am sure 95% of these use techniques which are either well-known to anyone in the relevant field or are blindingly obvious and so contain no innovation. To a European this just looks funny!
We tend to patent our bright ideas, to give the inventor a temporary advantage. It seems in the US patents are mainly used to block someone else's bright ideas.
The European system is not without its own problems. It is VERY biased toward large companies and against individual inventors. The quality of patents granted tends to be better because of the wider net cast during the examination process, but the little guy needs to be rather wealthy to join the party.
The US system is far better in that respect- I can file a provisional app for peanuts, and if I am willing to prosecute the patent myself, can get it through for a few thousand dollars. As well, the maintenance fees are an order of magnitude lower here.
The US system is far better in that respect- I can file a provisional app for peanuts, and if I am willing to prosecute the patent myself, can get it through for a few thousand dollars. As well, the maintenance fees are an order of magnitude lower here.
It is both. The gov't grants a patent owner a monopoly on intellectual property for a limited time in exchange for revealing their invention to the public. What the owner does with that monopoly is up to them.
Like I said, it is your fault for not filing for patent protection on your inventions. You should have done a prior art search before you started producing your product. If you found nothing, then you should have filed. If you found something, then you should not have produced your product. You are just crying sour grapes because someone else gamed the system against you. Grow up. Patents are for big kids. Don't play the patent game unless you are willing to defend yourself in court.
Patents are enshrined in law. That means one of two things:
1. someone regards them as a public good
2. someone regards them as a money-making opportunity for themselves or their kind
I am concerned to hear that someone who works in the patent 'trade' appears to embrace the latter idea: deepest purse wins. Patents are not meant to be a game - at least they should not be meant to be a game. That they apparently are seen as a big boys game is quite subversive of the rule of law.
1. someone regards them as a public good
2. someone regards them as a money-making opportunity for themselves or their kind
I am concerned to hear that someone who works in the patent 'trade' appears to embrace the latter idea: deepest purse wins. Patents are not meant to be a game - at least they should not be meant to be a game. That they apparently are seen as a big boys game is quite subversive of the rule of law.
Did you bother to read? Let me capitalize it for you:
THEIR CLAIMS DID NOT READ ON OUR PRODUCT. THEY COMMITTED FRAUD ON THE PTO FOR THEIR CONTINUATION. THE EXAMINER REFUSED TO LOOK AT PRIOR ART SUBMITTED.
Is that clearer?
In the second case (i.e., a different issue with a different company), we wouldn't file for a patent because there was 30 years of prior art. That's fraud on the patent office, and I hope you're not suggesting that we should have done that. A troll did, though, and held us up for compensation. The examiner wouldn't look at any of the prior art documents we supplied during the examination period and wouldn't talk to us. The clearly invalid patent was granted. We had to pay up or be forced into litigation.
In the third case (again, different company, different patent), patents were granted both to us and to a company that stole the technology from us, both applications filed within days of one another (this was under the old rule of "first to invent"). Examiners are supposed to have an interference proceeding. Nope. To this day, both patents, covering the same invention, are out there.
I know you're not intending to prove my point about patent examiners, but amazingly, you're doing a great job of it.
I recall a TV commercial back in the 1960s: "And it HAS to be true, else we couldn't say it on TV."
Your Utopian vision of the business and patent world is not anywhere close to reality. It's been "deepest purse wins" for thousands of years, long before patents were invented.
No, it's not clearer because nobody cares.
Nobody gives a flip that your opponent committed fraud. It's not relevant. If their claims did not read on your product, why did you suck up and pay them off? You should have let it go to court. You're not allowed to submit prior art in a patent application unless you are the applicant. Those are the rules. I'm sorry you don't like them but that's not my problem.
The immediate response to an infringement suit should be a counter suit for invalidity. If you didn't do that, then that's your problem. If you in fact had prior art against your opponent, then it was foolish for you not to counter sue. Like I said. Patents is for big kids. Grow up or go away.
Like I said again. If you're too wimpy to litigate, then don't play the patent game. Nobody cares about committing fraud on the Patent Office until it gets to court when the validity of the patent is challenged. Also, again, you cannot submit prior art to a pending patent application unless you are the applicant. You could call the examiner up, but don't be surprised if they won't talk to you. I just talked to my boss today and gave him that scenario, and we both agreed that we would at least take a look at what ever someone told us over the phone or via email about a published application. All of the published applications are out there and, obviously, published. It's your due diligence to keep track of what is being published and do something about it.
OK, so now you flip 180 degrees. A few posts back, an examiner would be a fool not to look at prior art sent by someone other than the applicant. Now it's not allowed.
Ladies and gentlemen, the US Patent Office.
"Playing" is not a choice when you're the defendant. The inability of examiners to properly do their jobs is a boon to the lawyer industry.
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