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« Patent Reform News Briefs | Main | Microsoft Corp. v. i4i Limited Partnership (2011) »

June 08, 2011

Comments

Pardon me for being cynical(in addition to being Skeptical), but "[t]he time (once again) is now" to (re)fill the coffers of Congress by lobbyists.

The problem that Congressmen most often have with precluding fee diversion is not the abiltiy to raid the income for general fund purposes, but rather exercising continuing control over the agency that does not need to come to Congress to fund its operations. An agency that does not have to answer to Congress each year for what it spends money on, becomes independent of Congress, which is a circumvention of Congress' function over the power of the purse and secondarily to control the executive brance in response to policy issues that may arise. There is no greater clarity of mind in an executive official, than the posibility that a Member may take action action on their budget if they are not responsive.

Louis Ventre,

You rargument is poignant, yet flawed.

The issue is very much the diversion of unds, as the budget process (even with fee diversion ended) still required Congressional approval. The need to come to Congress was still there. The power of the purse was still there.

The power to rape inventors and use the money inventors pay for other things is the critical issue.

What is hilarious is that they can solve the backlog with the stroke of a pen. Don't consider deps until after allowable subject matter is indicated and limit the number of inds. Then allow infinite deps and possibly very related inds after allowance.

/backlog end

The need to satisfy customers is a far better control mechanism than a bunch of politicians putting their sticky fingers into the till. Ergo, the Patent Office will run much better as a fee-supported agency, neither going hat in hand to Congress nor being pick-pocketed by politicians, than it will under Congress' dubious "oversight".

6 suggests omitting from the FAOM any mention of the dependent claims. This doesn't strike me as doing much for the efficiency of the examination process. How does Applicant know how to get to an allowable claim?

Does 6 see any merit in the standard format EPO opinion, attached to its search report issued just a few months after filing the appln, typically along the lines of: As for the dependent claims, the prior art applies as follows, .........(but putting into the independent claim the feature of claim 6 might produce an allowable claim).

At the EPO the rule is that, after the FAOM, Applicant gets one shot at amendment. After that, no further amendment can be admitted to the proceedings without the consent of the Examining Division. The EPC has no notion of continuing applications and there is a 2 year cap on filing divisionals. This double whammy concentrates minds wonderfully.

In my experience, the backlog at the EPO is more and more under control. It would not be though, if the EPC had continuations. For as long as they are a feature of the landscape, I have no idea how to bring down pendency, however much money is thrown at the problem. The bottom line is that Applicants want "something pending", throughout the term of the patent, and are willing to pay whatever that costs.

Thus it is, that the PTO is a golden goose for a Congress perpetually looking for more money. As we all know, eating the golden goose is a BIG mistake.

Just because they call it “reform” doesn’t mean it is. Patent reform is a fraud on America. This bill will not do what they claim it will. What it will do is help large multinational corporations maintain their monopolies by robbing and killing their small entity and startup competitors (so it will do exactly what the large multinationals paid for) and with them the jobs they would have created. According to recent studies by the Kauffman Foundation and economists at the U.S. Census Bureau, “startups aren’t everything when it comes to job growth. They’re the only thing.” This bill is a wholesale slaughter of US jobs. Those wishing to help in the fight to defeat this bill should contact us as below.

Small entities and inventors have been given far too little voice on this bill when one considers that they rely far more heavily on the patent system than do large firms who can control their markets by their size alone. The smaller the firm, the more they rely on patents -especially startups and individual inventors. Yet small entities create the lion's share of new jobs.

Please see http://truereform.piausa.org/ for a different/opposing view on patent reform.
http://docs.piausa.org/

H.R.1249 is an embarrassment. Urge Leadership to halt movement of this bill!

Drama over reform of Patent Law has dragged on for years. Once again Congress has introduced a legislative flop, H.R.1249. This legislation is poorly written, includes bail-outs for Wall Street banks, and attacks small businesses. STOP H.R.1249!!

SPTKGK-

Exactly correct and extremely disheartening for an independent like myself. Fortunately one of the proponents of stealing USPTO funding is my US Representative Norm Dicks. I think I will not say a word about patent reform to him, so that he can blithely kill the chances for the passage of H.R. 1249. I would like to believe that is what he is trying to do with his efforts, but I suspect not. It is very safe to say that he will never get a re-election vote from me again. I sincerely hope that Rep. Dana Rohrebacher (sp. ck)from California will come to our rescue, as he is very passionate about Patent *reform* and knows how treacherous it really is and has been.

Stan~

Until reading this week's articles on the topic, I thought that ending fee diversion was pretty much universally accepted as being the only sensible option in preventing the USPTO (an important driver of the economy) from imploding. After having read this article, I still can't see how anyone in his or her right mind would oppose the anti-fee-diversion provisions in the pending patent reform act.
http://www.aminn.org/patent-reform-act-2011-s23

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