From srctran@world.std.com  Tue May 22 17:52:55 2001
From: srctran@world.std.com (Gregory Aharonian)
Date: Tue, 22 May 2001 12:52:55 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [Patents] My personal opinion.
References: <Pine.LNX.4.31.0105221049520.5924-100000@querty.oas.a2e.de>
 <050d01c0e2c3$8083df40$6401a8c0@flint1.mi.home.com>
Message-ID: <200105221652.MAA13266@world.std.com>

Ramon writes:
>I think that the incentive of the monopoly should be balanced with the
>research work behind it.

That is probably as difficult and subjective to determine as obviousness.
Suppose I am a chemist, spending my whole life practising in some field
of chemistry.  One day I am walking along a beach thinking about chemistry
in general, and it suddenly occurs to me how to solve a chemical problem
of great financial value, but a problem I hadn't been working on
directly.  A flash of genius, a burst of inspiration, whatever you want
to call it.

For this particular effort, how much research work was behind it?  You
can answer it two ways:  zero, and a lot.  Zero, in the sense that he
solved a problem while spending no time directly on the problem.  A
lot of time, in the sense that the solution was based on his life's
research experiences and activities.  If asked to show how he solved
it, he would have no laboratory books, no papers published, nothing to
prove to Ramon that he invested a significant amount of time and
effort into solving what he know wants to patent.

Is that then grounds to deny him the patent?  I think not.  It has never
been a criteria of patentability, and never should.  Now Ramon might
object about all of the software patents being issued that to him look
like they required little research effort to invent, but I have seen
many such patents and the vast majority are disallowable on the more
easier grounds of lack of novelty and for being obvious, two tests
already part of the system.  

So once again,as I have been saying for the last ten years, let's
improve the quality of the patent examination process for all firlds
fields of technology, and many of your complaints will go away.
You are confusing deficiencies with the execution of the patent system,
with deficiencies in the patent system itself.

Greg Aharonian


