On Fri, 1 Oct 2004, Wouter van Ooijen wrote:

>> says that the USPTO rejects some patents 'on appeal'. I.e. someone
>> (lawyers) makes a lot of money on it. Would it not be more
>> beneficial if
>> they would reject them outright instead of granting them ?
>
> IMHO you are completely right, but the world is moving in the opposite
> direction. Even my own country (Netherlands), which used to have one of
> the toughest pre-patent investigation regimes, has moved to a just-file
> approach, leaving the challenging to the courts. Two thing that hake
> this move unavoidable is the gradual lowering of the 'innovation level'
> and the sheer amount of 'existing knowledge' which makes it almost
> impossible for a patent officer to asses whether a patent is realy new.

I'll just wait until they become really sloppy and then go and patent the 
examiner's dna, which I'll swipe off a piece of paper on his desk. Then I 
will own him, and anything he touches or touched. Muahahaha.

Peter
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