>  > That's just a temporary solution, until the 10k (10k what? Euros? :)
>>  brings the same level of uncertainty as the 1k now.
>
>10k (or maybe 50k) should allow a patent officer to do a decent search.
>This figure should of course be indexed.

FWIW, a former boss of mine (a patent attorney and a former patent 
examiner for the USPTO) once pointed out to me that the USPTO is a 
source of net revenue for the government. There is an incentive for 
as many patents to be issued as possible. He also said that the 
current policy was in general to basically issue the patent, and let 
the court system sort out whether or not it was valid.

I despise patent trolls, but they didn't cause the mess, they're just 
taking advantage of a broken system. Change has to come from within 
the USPTO (and similar agencies elsewhere in the world, although the 
US system may be the worst). You need management at the top that 
wants patents to be issued only for truly novel inventions, and 
orders examiners to follow that philosophy. I'm not sure if that is 
likely. The head of any government agency wants their fiefdom to 
grow, and you do that by issuing more patents, not fewer.

-- 

---
Chris Smolinski
Black Cat Systems
http://www.blackcatsystems.com
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