Re: 1-Click, Short-Click, Long-Click, More-Clicks (New Microsoft Patent)

[Rahul Dhesi]

Tim Jackson <news@winterbourne.freeserve.invalid> writes:

>The big issues, of course, are what's obvious and what's not, and
>whether the patent is appropriately limited.  That's down to how well
>the Patent Office is able to do its job.  Unfortunately, the US Patent
>Office is seriously under-resourced, because for many years Congress
>has been skimming off the fees paid by applicants and using them for
>unrelated purposes.  This has a detrimental effect on all areas of
>tencnology, not just computer and software-related subjects.

But as we have discussed before, Tim, the USPTO being under-resourced
(is that even a word?) is not by itself the problem.  Rather, the
problem is that, even knowing full well that the USPTO is under-
resourced and unable to properly determine whether or not a certain idea
is truly new, both the USPTO and the courts continue to treat published
and granted patents as if the USPTO was indeed doing thorough searches
of prior art.  It would not be that hard for the USPTO to classify
published patents as "thoroughly investigated, almost certainly valid"
or "not thoroughly investigated, might not be valid"; though not
necessarily in those words -- they could be just classified as "prime",
"second-grade", etc., instead.

Right now every patent implicitly bears an undeserved "prime" rating.
-- 
Rahul