[Patents] French State secretary for Industry against SoftPat

[srctran@world.std.com (Gregory Aharonian)]

>I do not think that a good prior art search is the real problem, because
>as I explained you before, if an invention is really worth of patent
>protection, the probability of being duplicated or reinvented is small.

I have long stated that for a fee of $5000 per software patent, one
can do a search that invalidates 80% of the issued software patents.
Now patent fees around the world are insufficient to fund patent
examiners to that level of support - in fact, of current patent fees,
I suspect the equivalent of about $500 is provided for searching,
woefully inadequate. 

Now in quantity across tens of thousands of patent applications, one
could bring the average cost for a good search down to about $1000
per patent, which is much more reasonable to be provided, either 
through slightly higher fees or direct government subsidies.

WHatever the actual numbers, my point is that improving prior art
searching can have a substantial impact on the patent quality, not
just for software, by imposing a cost that is not an undue burden
on applicants, and without having to change patent laws.   Software
patents right now are like Yugos, when they could be like Mercedes.
It is a solvable logistics problem.

Greg Aharonian