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PATNEWS: EPO patent quality dropping to low US levels

------- Forwarded message follows ------- Date sent: Fri, 3 Mar 2000 14:34:04 -0600 Send reply to: patent-l@ftplaw.wuacc.edu From: Gregory Aharonian <srctran@world.std.com> To: Multiple recipients of list <patent-l@ftplaw.wuacc.edu> Subject: PATNEWS: EPO patent quality dropping to low US levels

!20000303 EPO patent quality dropping to low US levels; bad BizMeth !patent

New Scientist (19 Feb 2000, 6) reports that EPO examiners are being swamped to such an extent that the quality of their patents is dropping. I wouldn't mind getting gossip from EPO examiners, if nothing else to pass on to US examiners. Here's the article:

Go-slow at patent office puts inventions on hold by Barry Fox

Old ideas and inventions could be mistakenly granted European patents unless examiners' workloads are reduced, according to the staff union at the European Patent Office. EPO examiners say they now have to process so many applications that they can no longer do their jobs properly and have begun industrial action in a bid to get staffing levels increased. The examiners at the EPO's head office in Munich and branch offices in the Hague, Berlin and Vienna staged warning strikes earlier this year, but failed to win any concessions.

Some 19 European states now support the EPO system of accepting one patent application for many countries, and as a result the number of applications filed is rising by around 10 percent each year. SUEPO argues that staffing levels are lagging behind the growing workload, and that examiners do not have enough time to study new applications carefully and search for prior inventions which may invalidate claims. SUEPO chairman Desmond Radford says measures taken by EPO on 1 January 2000 to monitor each employee's output was "a step too far" and obliges examiners to do "shoddy" searches.

After a two-day stoppage last month, examiners are now delaying searches on non-urgent applications. Urgent cases are searched, but the granting of formal patents is held back. So inventors have to wait longer before they can enforce any patents they win.

An EPO spokesman told New Scientist: "We accept that the workload has been increasing, but hope that more use of computerised records will help. We are also trying to streamline [work flow] by asking the same people to examine a case and search for prior art. These tasks have been separate until now."

For software and Internet patents, given EPO's inability (like the PTO) to supply their searchers with good access to the prior art (I have the data that backs up this assertion) the expectation should be the same flood of crappy software/Internet patents coming out of EPO that comes out of the PTO. So all you Europeans in the computing world better get ready for the fast growing levels of assertions of nonsensical software/Internet patents that is currently plaguing the US. Relying on the patent offices and patent bars on both sides of the Atlantic is a foolish thing to do.

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This morning's PATNEWS had an item about a business method patent I thought was real crappy. A lawyer sent in the following comment on why it isn't crappy, but rather useless:

Greg,

You know I'm a fan of yours and the Aharonian BizPat Thesis, but for your own credibility's sake, you should be a bit more circumspect before citing certain patents in support of that Thesis.

Regarding Pat. No. 6,007,340 below, you should know by now that the PTO allowed this claim because of its infinitesimally small scope. By use of the phrase "consisting of," claim 1 is limited to only the 7 enumerated qualities. To avoid the patent, the defendant only needs to consider one more quality, e.g. "good typing skills", and they are not covered by claim 1. The patent is, for all practical purposes, impossible to assert against anybody. I, for one, applaud the PTO for not wasting their time in searching this one.

My original article is attached below. I still beg to differ with this lawyer's comment. The PTO shouldn't be issuing unassertable patents - it makes a mockery of true inventors and good patents. If the PTO needs the issuance money that bad, let it go beat up some old ladies and steal their money. And even with its infinitesimally small scope, the patent is still obvious and not novel.

-- STUPID BUSINESS METHOD PATENT - MEASURING LEADERSHIP

In the spirit of the tremendous uproad over the Amazon patents (the next few days will see an endless number of articles in the media, partly to to Tim O'Reilly protest petition which at one point had over 7,000 signatures appended), a reader sent to me an example of yet another stupid, PTO-not-qualified-to-examine, business method patent:

6,007,340 M&S4 measuring leadership effectiveness What is claimed is: 1. A method for evaluating leadership effectiveness, comprising the steps of: - gathering target information quantifying at least one domain selected from the group consisting of having personal convictions, being visionary, building emotional bonds, being inspirational, being team oriented, being a risk taker, and having a drive to excel; - comparing the target information with a standard, the standard including standard values of the domain; and - identifying non-standard responses of the target.

What a total piece of crap. Only four non-patent prior art items were cited, absolutely nothing from the multitude of psychological academic journals, conferences, and books by tall guys who walk on hot coals. This claim is utterly obvious if you take MPEP, and instead of using a bunch of Lutherans from the Midwest as the standard, you use a bunch of executives. Business method patenting will be a complete joke at the PTO.

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