[Dan Boresjo]
Why not just file a statutory disclosure?
[Phillip Hallam-Baker]
We could try, do they bother to read them?
Sometimes. It wouldn't be a bad idea, in any case. Publishing it in a
widely read journal would also be good PR for SPF and accomplishes the same
thing.
[Phillip Hallam-Baker]
Come to that we know they don't read the damn patents. I know of at least
one case that got to (expensive) littigation based on a patent
with a first
claim identical to one issued three years earlier.
Yes, some of the examiners seem to be Bozo's in Bozoland. Being overworked,
even the good ones are at a disadvantage compared to the applicants. I've
seen plenty of patent approvals in my area of hardware engineering where the
claims encompassed widely used prior art methods. While these patents would
not likely withstand challenge, I think you would agree that the cost to
challenge a patent and prosecute that challenge to the bitter end excludes
all but the biggest players. Even if you have a patent with defensible
claims, failure to defend it can be used as evidence of abandonment. If you
don't have the cash to defend a patent, even filing an application is of
dubious value if you're up against a big boy who doesn't mind playing
hardball.
The PTO system may be broken, but we have little choice but to do our best
to play by the rules. Public disclosure is much cheaper than defensive
filing. If there aren't any useful claims in the defensive application, I'm
not sure what that buys you over (free) public disclosure.
[Phillip Hallam-Baker]
We might as well get a bunch of hippies, circle the USPTO and try to
levitate it for all the good anything will do.
Any former hippie can tell you the group levitation thing was a crock. One
my biggest personal disappointments.
--
Seth Goodman
off-list replies to sethg [at] GoodmanAssociates [dot] com
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