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The USPTO does no prior art checking, especially in software. You could patent simple logic gates... today.
by api 14y ago
The USPTO does no prior art checking, especially in software. You could patent simple logic gates... today.
- ChuckMcM 14y agoThis isn't true, I've filed and been granted a number of patents on various things and in nearly every one there was a response from the PTO about things they considered to be prior art. Granted sometimes their searches were poorly done (word matching for example) but generally there was some prior art checking.
- grhino 14y agoYep. It's not that they don't consider prior art at all. It's just that an exhaustive search for priort art is not possible, and all it takes is one overworked patent clerk to let something like this slip by. It's possible that this is a valid patent based on whatever criteria the patent office uses for software patents. The problem is that the criteria is terrible for validating software patents. I don't even believe any criteria for validating software patents would actually encourage innovation in software.
- monochromatic 14y agoSpoken like someone who truly has zero experience with the USPTO.
- snogglethorpe 14y agoNo, they definitely do check for prior art. The problem, as I understand it, is that they don't cast their net all that widely, and how they do cast their net doesn't really correspond very well with the way most informed people think about such issues. In all the cases I've seen, they've cited other patents as evidence of prior art, where the other patent is pretty obviously similar (lots of the same keywords etc). On the other hand, stuff that's so incredibly obvious and widespread that nobody never even considered patenting it before might get through easily, 'cause you know, no prior patents... >< [I have a Japanese patent, and an attempt to get the same patent in the US was rejected by the USPTO (after years of back-and-forth...) because of prior US patents.]