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Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, June 26 2012 @ 08:13 PM EDT |
I don't think it is primarily a funding issue - but more of
an incentive/process issue.
Patent Office:
1. Paid per application processed
2. Absorbs costs for resubmissions
3. Graded based on backlog
Inventors:
1. Cost limited to time and patent application.
2. Value proportional to broadness of claims.
So, this is a system where inventors will appeal overly
broad patents infinitely until the patent office grants
them.
...more money won't help much.
OTOH, if you change the incentives to something more
rational, I predict that the patent system would become
significantly more functional.
Eg., charge (a lot) for resubmissions. Charge a lot for
unsuccessful appeals. Use successful and abandoned
submissions as prior art. Allow rejections based on
insufficient comparison to prior art. (Eg., examiner finds
something similar that isn't cited...) Also allow
rejections based on incomprehensibility.
Suddenly, patent examiners would be highly motivated to
reject problematic patents - and could reject
incomprehensible patents out of hand. Problem reduced.
The new problem would be patent examiners simply rejecting
everything - but the above appeals set-up might help.
--Erwin[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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