[Patents] Why Greg Aharonian is wrong

[ramon@jl1.quim.ucm.es (Ram'on Garc'ia Fern'andez)]

On Thu, Apr 05, 2001 at 09:05:03AM +0200, Jozef Halbersztadt wrote:
> I am going to contest two main thesis of Greg Aharonian. He claims that p=
atent offices can work better. He claims too that in all fields of technolo=
gy there are problems with patents. Patent offices can work better as the U=
S PTO works, because work of the PTO is often a disaster. The proposed by G=
reg remedies were from start applied in the EPO. In the EPO examiners have =
smaller load as in the PTO, higher wages, better databases and even better =
procedures (publication before granting). The result cannot be ignored. For=
 example look for a rough analysis of Altavista indexing patents: 30+ were =
granted in the US, 2 were granted in the EPO. Nevertheless, it does not mak=
e difference big enough. Why, because any patent office grants as a rule an=
d rejects as an exception. Alternative approach is unrealizable. Do you thi=
nk that a public institution that rejects 90% applications can survive? In =
less developed countries there are powerful arguments for such an economica=
l policy. But even there I cannot imagine reason for putting the brightest =
people into the patent office. The brightest are more needed as inventors, =
university teachers, entrepreneurs, and even political leaders. And when yo=
u accept that patent office personnel should be the second rate quality, it=
 is reasonable not to give them too much power.

Very interesting comment.

I agree with you. It is an utopy that a patent office has examiners
competent in every technical area. For example, for examining software
patents they could have several good programmers, but that is not
enough. No programmer can be competent in all the Computer Science,
because it is too large. A software engineer cannot be competent in 3D
rendering, functional programming, distributed systems, genetic
programming, ... at the same time.

Scientific journals commission the examining of each article to
determinate if it is relevant to a scientist that is doing research on
the same area of the article.  These reviewers are known as
"referees". Even a journal named "Journal of Polymer Science" cannot
have examiners competent with all the polymer science.  How can a
patent office pretend to have people competent in everything?


Ramon