Patent correctness as an externality

Posted May 22, 2014 15:49 UTC (Thu) by Max.Hyre (subscriber, #1054)
Parent article: US Supreme Court decisions make patent trolling riskier

Unfortunately, the people creating this mess are unaffected by it. There is zero blowback to the USPTO for awarding a meritless patent. Hence this modest proposal:

Given this change, maybe the bill which is in danger of evaporating should be modified so that, say, 1/10% of the awarded damages should come out of the salary of the examiner who granted the patent. The amount should be enough that the examiner would be inconvenienced by it, but not so much as to scare people away from the job.

Of course, this conflicts with the USPTO’s being (AIUI) given cash for each patent awarded, but that’s an argument for another day.

Patent correctness as an externality

Posted May 23, 2014 4:38 UTC (Fri) by k8to (guest, #15413) [Link] (3 responses)

Given that the individual examiners are already not given nearly enough resources/time to do a reasonable job, I fail to see how threatening them will help.

Better to take the money from the office's budget.

Patent correctness as an externality

Posted May 23, 2014 19:33 UTC (Fri) by rgmoore (✭ supporter ✭, #75) [Link] (2 responses)

Better to take the money from the office's budget.

Or change the system so it gives the PTO an incentive to do a good job rather than to rush through things. The fee for filing a patent should be enough to pay the examiner's salary for a thorough examination. Filer's should have to pay extra for extremely long and complex patents, and they should definitely have to pay every time they change the filing. There should be an ability to charge an extra fee for wasting the examiner's time if the submission is obviously invalid.

Patent correctness as an externality

Posted May 23, 2014 21:30 UTC (Fri) by Jonno (subscriber, #49613) [Link] (1 responses)

> There should be an ability to charge an extra fee for wasting the examiner's time if the submission is obviously invalid.

No need, just charge the same fee for an obviously invalid applications as for an issued patent.

Currently USPTO charges $1860 for an invalid application, while a granted patent cost $2820 for the first 4 years, or $15420 for a full 20 years (with 50% off if you qualify for "Small Entity Status"). Simply charging the full $2820 for invalid applications should remove the incentive to approve everything and letting the courts sort out the mess...

Also, reducing the $12000 fee for "Request for ex parte reexamination" might be a good way to get some clean-up where necessary. In my opinion it shouldn't really be more expensive than the original examination...

Patent correctness as an externality

Posted May 23, 2014 21:56 UTC (Fri) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link]

If they are going for cost recovery it might make more sense to go the other way, minimum charge of $12,000 for review regardless of whether it is approved or not. That should be able to cover the cost of an _actual_ review, which the $2800 fee clearly does not.