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The USPTO is far from perfect, and examiners make bad calls sometimes... but it is by no means trivial to get a trivial patent issued. And the idea of a presump

The USPTO is far from perfect, and examiners make bad calls sometimes... but it is by no means trivial to get a trivial patent issued. And the idea of a presumption of invalidity (as opposed to, say, no presumption one way or the other) is so ludicrous that it doesn't bear response.

Retric 11y ago
It seems reasonable for courts to avoid injunctions or punitive damages for periods prior to a patent being tested in court. Calling this invalid or no presumption is more or less the same concept.
- monochromatic 11y ago
  No, it isn't. The presumption goes to how hard it is to assert a patent in court.
  - Retric 11y ago
    That's a good thing in this case. Start with 100 junk patents to the USPTO > one gets though. Now take that one and threaten a company. Company says the is a BS patent. Take company to court demand injunction + damages. Company responds it's invalid! Q: Does the court force an injunction anyway? If it does there is huge incentives to settle even if it’s a BS patent.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
PythonicAlpha 11y ago
Of course it is not trivial to get a patent application threw, but that is the reason, big corporations have highly paid lawyers for that. The whole thing is a shadow-industry of it's own (starting at the patent office, that earns money by issuing patents).
- monochromatic 11y ago
  The patent office doesn't get to keep lots of the fees it takes in.
lisper 11y ago
> it is by no means trivial to get a trivial patent issued Actually, it's pretty easy. Here's how you do it: 1. File the application. 2. Wait for it to be rejected. The rejection will have a point-by-point explanation of why the patent was rejected. (i.e. the patent office is required by law to do your homework for you.) 3. Tweak the application so that the objections raised by the examiner are no longer valid, and re-file. 4. Repeat as necessary. I have personally used this method successfully three times, and it only took two iterations all three times. The third time I used it on an intentionally bogus patent (http://www.google.com/patents/US20030133714 http://www.google.com/patents/US20030133714) just to see if it would work. It did.
- monochromatic 11y ago
  Like I said, examiners do make mistakes sometimes. For what it's worth though, your claims look pretty lengthy.
  - lisper 11y ago
    > examiners do make mistakes sometimes That is true, but it misses the point. Apart from the occasional honest mistake, there is a system of perverse incentives that results in the reliable and predictable issuing of bogus patents even when examiners do their jobs well. > your claims look pretty lengthy. You must not have read many patents. I have one independent claim and six dependent claims, each with a single minor tweak on the independent claim. That's well below average.
    - monochromatic 11y ago
      I mean your independent is lengthy. I don't care how many dependents you have if we're talking about the breadth of the patent.
      - lisper 11y ago
        It's about 220 words. I don't have time to do a survey, but I think that's not unusual. But you're still missing the point: this is an intentionally bogus patent. It's essentially a patent on a perpetual motion machine that I prosecuted simply to test the theory that one can patent anything by using the method I described. The length of the claim is irrelevant.
maxxxxx 11y ago
From my experience it's quite easy to get a patent issued if you have enough lawyers on staff. I have been at brainstorming sessions at a big company where we came up with around 10 ideas within an hour and often at least one of them ended up being a patent.

Retric 11y ago

It seems reasonable for courts to avoid injunctions or punitive damages for periods prior to a patent being tested in court. Calling this invalid or no presumption is more or less the same concept.

monochromatic 11y ago
No, it isn't. The presumption goes to how hard it is to assert a patent in court.
- Retric 11y ago
  That's a good thing in this case. Start with 100 junk patents to the USPTO > one gets though. Now take that one and threaten a company. Company says the is a BS patent. Take company to court demand injunction + damages. Company responds it's invalid! Q: Does the court force an injunction anyway? If it does there is huge incentives to settle even if it’s a BS patent.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]

PythonicAlpha 11y ago

Of course it is not trivial to get a patent application threw, but that is the reason, big corporations have highly paid lawyers for that. The whole thing is a shadow-industry of it's own (starting at the patent office, that earns money by issuing patents).

monochromatic 11y ago
The patent office doesn't get to keep lots of the fees it takes in.

lisper 11y ago

> it is by no means trivial to get a trivial patent issued Actually, it's pretty easy. Here's how you do it: 1. File the application. 2. Wait for it to be rejected. The rejection will have a point-by-point explanation of why the patent was rejected. (i.e. the patent office is required by law to do your homework for you.) 3. Tweak the application so that the objections raised by the examiner are no longer valid, and re-file. 4. Repeat as necessary. I have personally used this method successfully three times, and it only took two iterations all three times. The third time I used it on an intentionally bogus patent (http://www.google.com/patents/US20030133714 http://www.google.com/patents/US20030133714) just to see if it would work. It did.

monochromatic 11y ago
Like I said, examiners do make mistakes sometimes. For what it's worth though, your claims look pretty lengthy.
- lisper 11y ago
  > examiners do make mistakes sometimes That is true, but it misses the point. Apart from the occasional honest mistake, there is a system of perverse incentives that results in the reliable and predictable issuing of bogus patents even when examiners do their jobs well. > your claims look pretty lengthy. You must not have read many patents. I have one independent claim and six dependent claims, each with a single minor tweak on the independent claim. That's well below average.
  - monochromatic 11y ago
    I mean your independent is lengthy. I don't care how many dependents you have if we're talking about the breadth of the patent.
    - lisper 11y ago
      It's about 220 words. I don't have time to do a survey, but I think that's not unusual. But you're still missing the point: this is an intentionally bogus patent. It's essentially a patent on a perpetual motion machine that I prosecuted simply to test the theory that one can patent anything by using the method I described. The length of the claim is irrelevant.

maxxxxx 11y ago

From my experience it's quite easy to get a patent issued if you have enough lawyers on staff. I have been at brainstorming sessions at a big company where we came up with around 10 ideas within an hour and often at least one of them ended up being a patent.