Hi All,
Depending on the stage in the patenting process; I recall that if
anyone draws the inventors attention to information relevant to the
application (example: prior art), then the inventor is obliged to
inform the examiner - and if they fail to do so, the subsequent patent
is invalid. Of course - if the information is good - the examiner
will reject the application.
Software patents take 1 to 5 years from application to issue I also
recall, depending on the responsiveness of the applicant. In the old
days (1994) the examiner I faced was really smart, did great research,
and disallowed lots of bits of my patent based on things he
unearthed himself - so if they're still like this - even anything
slightly relevant will be sufficient to sink the entire application.
Kind Regards,
Chris Drake