[Patents] search quality at USPTO and EPO

[PILCH Hartmut phm@a2e.de]

Greg Aharonian's PatNews  contained this comment on a discussion at the USPTO
about patent search quality.

--------------------------

Pamela Banner (law prof): ... Finding non-patent prior art, there is a rumor
at bar meetings that EPO searches return a lot of non-patent prior art, with a
secret database.  Can we learn from them?

Nick Godici (USPTO assistant commissioner): We cooperate with the EPO and JPO,
and share information.  But because we don't cite some non-patent literature,
doesn't mean we don't search.  All of this is part of the file record. EPO
spends twice as much time searching.


       [NOTE: At least for software patents, the EPO searches really
       aren't that much better, and as EPO examiners experience
       higher and higher volumes of patent applicants, it is likely
       the quality of EPO searches will fall to those of PTO searches.
       Additionally, EPO is about as apathetic as the PTO when it
       comes to collecting and publishing non-trivial statistics
       about EPO examining/searching performance.]



-phm