4 ms·

Funny. Looking at that list I start wondering how that really can happen. Yes, I know that jurisprudence is BS, there's no such thing as justice, etc., but real

by krick 13y ago

Funny. Looking at that list I start wondering how that really can happen. Yes, I know that jurisprudence is BS, there's no such thing as justice, etc., but really. I mean, looking at this list makes it so obvious that something isn't right, that I don't understand how she can have a job. That is, it couldn't be that examiner's work isn't overviewed/supervised by other instances, could it? If so, why Ms. Blackman haven't lost her job yet? Why nobody questioned her examination cases? Or maybe she is doing it right and it's only hard to understand if your brain isn't spoiled by law education? Can somebody explain?

u124556 13y ago
Why nobody is showing concerns about her to the USPTO? Do US Government agencies have any politics about the general public concerned with the work of the individuals working there? What about other examiners?
- sillysaurus3 13y ago
  Why nobody is showing concerns about her to the USPTO? This feels a little too close to being a witchhunt. Once we start talking about "why isn't the internet reporting these people to their employers?" the conversation has stopped being about ideas. EDIT: The concerns seem justified. I'm just saying that maybe we shouldn't be trying to use HN to organize the end of individual careers. Calling attention to the fact that this patent was examined by particular individuals seems ok. It's just a fact. Using HN as an organizational vehicle to help angry people on the internet get some specific people fired, by name, would be a troubling new trend for HN. We're a community, not a task force.
  - X4 13y ago
    absolutely.. stop here! It's the system not a poor woman working for a giant money printing industry! Challenge the status quo instead of sniping out individuals.
    - differentView 13y ago
      Not everyone has the ability to do both. People should do what they can. Even though I can't invent a new clean energy source, I try to reduce energy use where I can.
  - thaumasiotes 13y ago
    It's an ugly trend, sure. But I think there's something to be said for reporting people to their employers when your concern is that they're doing their job badly, where "badly" here might be read as "incompetently" or "perniciously". How do you feel about filing complaints against cops for, say, beating up arrestees? What about taking bribes? If reporting a cop for taking bribes is OK, why is reporting a patent examiner for awarding a patent in the face of prior art bad? What about reporting a clerk to their manager for speaking to you rudely? Not only does this happen all the time, I don't see a lot of people saying hey, lay off the rude clerks. edit: a pair of summary examples: "X is a satanist". This doesn't impact X's performance as a patent officer, or really anything else. "X couldn't recognize prior art if it was disclosed in the patent application". This directly impacts performance as a patent officer, and can properly be reported to X's employer.
    - sillysaurus3 13y ago
      How do you feel about filing complaints against cops for, say, beating up arrestees? What about taking bribes? Oh, there's no question: I love being beaten by police officers! And bribery is good for the soul, don't you think? Seriously though, using HN as a way of organizing large numbers of people to action against specific employees is probably stepping a bit too far. That's almost the very definition of an internet witchhunt. Getting these people fired won't fix the underlying problems.
      - thaumasiotes 13y ago
        > Oh, there's no question: I love being beaten by police officers! And bribery is good for the soul, don't you think? Sure, I picked a favorable example. I go on to directly ask you about the analogy: If reporting a cop for taking bribes is OK, why is reporting a patent examiner for awarding a patent in the face of prior art bad? Do you have a response? > Getting these people fired won't fix the underlying problems I'd say that depends on how many people get fired. If the effort to throw them out persists, the patent office will change. Getting one person fired, calling it a victory, and going home is unlikely to fix any underlying problems.
  - natch 13y ago
    Good point. On the other hand, this isn't a case of non-disprovable accusations based on superstition. What it looks like is a case of incompetence. Surely not the only one at the USPTO, but that doesn't excuse it.
  - zo1 13y ago
    Ah yes, the old "just doing my job" line. If people can't hide behind that excuse, they'll be more inclined to act like responsible citizens and human beings. So please, this is not a witch hunt. It's merely us saying that normal people, like you and me, are behind some of the madness that could potentially affect a giant section of the population. Treat them like human beings, and maybe they'll take the initiative next time without our prompting.
  - maxerickson 13y ago
    A witch hunt would involve gaming the reporting system to hassle people for irrelevant reasons. This is at least arguably discussing how to report a legitimate concern.
    - Crito 13y ago
      > A witch hunt would involve gaming the reporting system to hassle people for irrelevant reasons. Specifically I would say that a witch hunt is characterized by an assumption of guilt, combined with a high false-positive rate, combined with offers for leniency if the accused points their finger at others. That's how the House Un-American Activities Commission did it, and those are the parallels between the HUAC and Salem that Arthur Miller identified. Merely accusing somebody of doing their job poorly isn't anything like a witch hunt.
- acdha 13y ago
  > Why nobody is showing concerns about her to the USPTO? What are the odds that her supervisor has no idea what's going on? They either have a broken quality review process or, more likely, have been told to do more with less for so long that people know they aren't doing good work but need to deliver numbers. Hiring people to work in the federal government is a bitter political issue so it's almost certain that they're understaffed, particularly since the legally-mandated process and payscale will complicate hiring technical experts in fields which pay well. In either case, you can complain about this person in particular but you really should be contacting your congressional representatives to request both legal reform and increased budget / accountability for the USPTO to avoid some congressman's “savings” costing industry billions when a bad patent is issued.
GoodIntentions 13y ago
It took me more years working than it should have to realize this: If someone consistently does a poor job, look up. They aren't the problem.
sitkack 13y ago
The self-enclosed member can include an inner surface at least partially defining an enclosed region, and an outer surface that turns outwardly to engage a cavity or lumen wall in addition to turning inward to at least partially encompass a central region defining a longitudinal path.
tzs 13y ago
> I mean, looking at this list makes it so obvious that something isn't right, that I don't understand how she can have a job. Just reading the list gives you no useful information whatsoever about how well or how poorly she is doing her job. All the list has is the abstracts from the patents. A patent abstract is kind of like the blurb on the back of a book, or a trailer for a movie. They give you an overview of what the patent covers, but there will be innumerable ways to accomplish what the abstract describes without infringing the patent. When you are looking at a list of patents to figure out if you might be infringing one of them, or to figure out if one of them describes a solution to a problem you are trying to find a solution for, the abstract is more of a tool for telling you which patents you can skip rather than what ones you need to take a deeper look at. To see what the patent actually covers, you have to read the claims. However, the claims are interpreted in light of the specification, so you have to read that, too. A claim may appear to be quite broad, but the discussion in the specification might limit general terms in the claim to very specific values or meanings. In most cases, a patent is not something you can just sit down and quickly understand, even if you are an expert in the field the patent is in. Even this is not always enough. You should also read the "file wrapper" for the patent. That's the collection of documentation generated during the processing of the patent application. It will include things like the examiner's prior art search results, initial rejections of claims, the letters from the application trying to persuade the examiner to change their mind about rejected claims, answers to questions from the examiner, and stuff like that. You can get the file wrapper online through the "Patent Application Information Retrieval" (PAIR) interface [1]. [1] http://portal.uspto.gov/pair/PublicPair http://portal.uspto.gov/pair/PublicPair

by krick 13y ago

u124556 13y ago

Why nobody is showing concerns about her to the USPTO? Do US Government agencies have any politics about the general public concerned with the work of the individuals working there? What about other examiners?

sillysaurus3 13y ago
Why nobody is showing concerns about her to the USPTO? This feels a little too close to being a witchhunt. Once we start talking about "why isn't the internet reporting these people to their employers?" the conversation has stopped being about ideas. EDIT: The concerns seem justified. I'm just saying that maybe we shouldn't be trying to use HN to organize the end of individual careers. Calling attention to the fact that this patent was examined by particular individuals seems ok. It's just a fact. Using HN as an organizational vehicle to help angry people on the internet get some specific people fired, by name, would be a troubling new trend for HN. We're a community, not a task force.
- X4 13y ago
  absolutely.. stop here! It's the system not a poor woman working for a giant money printing industry! Challenge the status quo instead of sniping out individuals.
  - differentView 13y ago
    Not everyone has the ability to do both. People should do what they can. Even though I can't invent a new clean energy source, I try to reduce energy use where I can.
- thaumasiotes 13y ago
  It's an ugly trend, sure. But I think there's something to be said for reporting people to their employers when your concern is that they're doing their job badly, where "badly" here might be read as "incompetently" or "perniciously". How do you feel about filing complaints against cops for, say, beating up arrestees? What about taking bribes? If reporting a cop for taking bribes is OK, why is reporting a patent examiner for awarding a patent in the face of prior art bad? What about reporting a clerk to their manager for speaking to you rudely? Not only does this happen all the time, I don't see a lot of people saying hey, lay off the rude clerks. edit: a pair of summary examples: "X is a satanist". This doesn't impact X's performance as a patent officer, or really anything else. "X couldn't recognize prior art if it was disclosed in the patent application". This directly impacts performance as a patent officer, and can properly be reported to X's employer.
  - sillysaurus3 13y ago
    How do you feel about filing complaints against cops for, say, beating up arrestees? What about taking bribes? Oh, there's no question: I love being beaten by police officers! And bribery is good for the soul, don't you think? Seriously though, using HN as a way of organizing large numbers of people to action against specific employees is probably stepping a bit too far. That's almost the very definition of an internet witchhunt. Getting these people fired won't fix the underlying problems.
    - thaumasiotes 13y ago
      > Oh, there's no question: I love being beaten by police officers! And bribery is good for the soul, don't you think? Sure, I picked a favorable example. I go on to directly ask you about the analogy: If reporting a cop for taking bribes is OK, why is reporting a patent examiner for awarding a patent in the face of prior art bad? Do you have a response? > Getting these people fired won't fix the underlying problems I'd say that depends on how many people get fired. If the effort to throw them out persists, the patent office will change. Getting one person fired, calling it a victory, and going home is unlikely to fix any underlying problems.
- natch 13y ago
  Good point. On the other hand, this isn't a case of non-disprovable accusations based on superstition. What it looks like is a case of incompetence. Surely not the only one at the USPTO, but that doesn't excuse it.
- zo1 13y ago
  Ah yes, the old "just doing my job" line. If people can't hide behind that excuse, they'll be more inclined to act like responsible citizens and human beings. So please, this is not a witch hunt. It's merely us saying that normal people, like you and me, are behind some of the madness that could potentially affect a giant section of the population. Treat them like human beings, and maybe they'll take the initiative next time without our prompting.
- maxerickson 13y ago
  A witch hunt would involve gaming the reporting system to hassle people for irrelevant reasons. This is at least arguably discussing how to report a legitimate concern.
  - Crito 13y ago
    > A witch hunt would involve gaming the reporting system to hassle people for irrelevant reasons. Specifically I would say that a witch hunt is characterized by an assumption of guilt, combined with a high false-positive rate, combined with offers for leniency if the accused points their finger at others. That's how the House Un-American Activities Commission did it, and those are the parallels between the HUAC and Salem that Arthur Miller identified. Merely accusing somebody of doing their job poorly isn't anything like a witch hunt.
acdha 13y ago
> Why nobody is showing concerns about her to the USPTO? What are the odds that her supervisor has no idea what's going on? They either have a broken quality review process or, more likely, have been told to do more with less for so long that people know they aren't doing good work but need to deliver numbers. Hiring people to work in the federal government is a bitter political issue so it's almost certain that they're understaffed, particularly since the legally-mandated process and payscale will complicate hiring technical experts in fields which pay well. In either case, you can complain about this person in particular but you really should be contacting your congressional representatives to request both legal reform and increased budget / accountability for the USPTO to avoid some congressman's “savings” costing industry billions when a bad patent is issued.

GoodIntentions 13y ago

It took me more years working than it should have to realize this: If someone consistently does a poor job, look up. They aren't the problem.

sitkack 13y ago

The self-enclosed member can include an inner surface at least partially defining an enclosed region, and an outer surface that turns outwardly to engage a cavity or lumen wall in addition to turning inward to at least partially encompass a central region defining a longitudinal path.

tzs 13y ago

> I mean, looking at this list makes it so obvious that something isn't right, that I don't understand how she can have a job. Just reading the list gives you no useful information whatsoever about how well or how poorly she is doing her job. All the list has is the abstracts from the patents. A patent abstract is kind of like the blurb on the back of a book, or a trailer for a movie. They give you an overview of what the patent covers, but there will be innumerable ways to accomplish what the abstract describes without infringing the patent. When you are looking at a list of patents to figure out if you might be infringing one of them, or to figure out if one of them describes a solution to a problem you are trying to find a solution for, the abstract is more of a tool for telling you which patents you can skip rather than what ones you need to take a deeper look at. To see what the patent actually covers, you have to read the claims. However, the claims are interpreted in light of the specification, so you have to read that, too. A claim may appear to be quite broad, but the discussion in the specification might limit general terms in the claim to very specific values or meanings. In most cases, a patent is not something you can just sit down and quickly understand, even if you are an expert in the field the patent is in. Even this is not always enough. You should also read the "file wrapper" for the patent. That's the collection of documentation generated during the processing of the patent application. It will include things like the examiner's prior art search results, initial rejections of claims, the letters from the application trying to persuade the examiner to change their mind about rejected claims, answers to questions from the examiner, and stuff like that. You can get the file wrapper online through the "Patent Application Information Retrieval" (PAIR) interface [1]. [1] http://portal.uspto.gov/pair/PublicPair http://portal.uspto.gov/pair/PublicPair