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>Currently all the layers in patent application process is incentivized to ignore quality. Not just "incentivized to ignore quality", they aren't duty-bound to
by bumby 3y ago
>Currently all the layers in patent application process is incentivized to ignore quality.
Not just "incentivized to ignore quality", they aren't duty-bound to consider quality at all. The PTO evaluates applications for novelty, not quality.
The three main relevant parts of the US Code are:
35 USC Sec. 101: is it patentable? (i.e., it must be a process, machine, process, or manufactured good. It can't be something like an idea or song)
35 USC Sec. 102: is it novel? (i.e., no one single prior existing item teaches all the limitations of the patent claims)
35 USC Sec. 103: is it non-obvious? (i.e., you can't combine a couple of different patents to arrive at your patent)
There's a few other important sections (like 112 that ensures you're giving enough detail), but none of them look at "quality". In other words, you can patent a worthless invention as long as it passes those wickets.
Edit: Somewhat surprisingly to some, they don't necessarily evaluate infringement either. So you could, in theory, have a novel patent that you can't use to make something because it infringes on an existing patent.
- pc86 3y agoThey're barely qualified to address novelty and get it wrong often, so I can't even imagine the types of things that would have been denied had they tried to evaluate the quality as well.
- samstave 3y ago>>The PTO evaluates applications for novelty, not quality. As it should be. The USPTO is in no place to evaluate a patent's quality, unless youre a USPTO clerk whos first name starts with Albert and your last name ends in -Stein. --- But in seriousness, novelty is the important factor in a patent, not quality. As utility patents/improvement patents are a thing.
- lesuorac 3y agoI would disagree and claim the patent office is "incentivized to ignore quality". The clerks are expected to do a certain amount of work per week and granting a patent counts as more work than denying a patent.
- abduhl 3y agoPatent examiners are rated on office ACTIONS. Grants and denies both count as actions, although denials often take more effort (and complaints from the potential patentee).
- lesuorac 3y agoI mean they're not rated on ACTIONS. They're rated on their PRODUCTION UNITS; of which an ALLOWANCE yields twice as many PRODUCTION UNITS than a REJECTION yields. So; clerk are incentivized to grant a patent as it takes less effort and yields more production units. If a patent is of poor quality and later is invalidated in a lawsuit; the clerk will not lose production units. Therefore; the clerk is incentivized to grant patents as they count as more production units and not penalized for granting a patent they shouldn't've. https://www.uspto.gov/sites/default/files/Examination%20Time%20and%20the%20Production%20System.pdf https://www.uspto.gov/sites/default/files/Examination%20Time...
- abduhl 3y agoThis is a misunderstanding of the slideshow. As can be seen on slide 10, productivity is "Number of office actions / period of time" and slide 12 shows the breakdown of how production units are calculated from office actions. A final disposition (allowance, appeal, or abandonment) is worth twice as much as a final rejection; however, that does not mean an examiner is incentivized to allow patents. Rather, they are incentivized to get to the end of the process by either allowing the patent, having the patentee appeal the examiner's final rejection, or by the patentee abandoning their application. Which of these three occurs is irrelevant to the examiner, although as I said before: an allowance take the least amount of effort. In fact, the most production units that can be obtained by a patent examiner for any particular patent is to issue a final rejection, get the patentee to ask for re-examination, reject again, and then have the patentee abandon the patent.