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Patent Office Chief Resigns - Praised For Reform?
from the more-of-the-same dept
theodp writes "USPTO Director James Rogan is leaving the Bush administration in January to complete work on his autobiography, "Rough Edges," which will be published next summer, but can be preordered at Amazon.com today (be sure to turn on that patented 1-Click!). According to today's USPTO press release, Rogan changed the culture of the agency by making quality, not the time it takes to get a patent, the hallmark of its work - judge for yourself!" Amazingly, the article about him leaving talks about how much he's done to reform the patent system. Yet, every day we still seem to see ridiculous patents. If that's what we call reform these days, I think we need something different.
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Channels the book 1984
If that's what we call reform these days, I think we need something different.
If you repeat a lie long enough to enough people, it becomes truth.
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Maybe he DID reform the patent system and patent office. You're just supposing that any reform is good reform.
The USPTO is not a regulatory agency; it's not there to block patent applications. It's there to accept fee money for patents.
Patent applications aren't examined anymore, they're processed. Clerks have to process a certain caseload, and grant a vast majority of the requests. Only the USPTO database itself is searched for "prior art."
The only trend in the positive which I've seen recently is to move toward a more transparent public review before patents are actually granted. But this is far from the level of transparency required to allow the market to really vet and challenge the absurd patent applications for obvious and non-novel methods.
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