On 11/4/2011 10:58 AM, Scott Dorsey wrote:
hamilton wrote:
What was the patent examiner thinking !!
He looked out his window, saw a bunch of cars with "lighted" license
plates, and said, they are not "Illuminated" license plate and decided
there was no prior art.
That is the basic problem with the USPTO today. There are huge numbers of
patents coming in, and not a lot of money, so they hire some pretty clueless
examiners.
It takes 3 to 5 years for a typical patent application to make its way through
the PTO. What's interesting is that since filing fees are paid up front, the PTO
is living off of fees for work it's hopefully going to do in the next 3 to 5
years. Let's hope they don't have a major downturn in business.
Personally, I liked the ham sandwich patent best, although Microsoft's
patent on the ring buffer is even more hilarious. The software patents are
really the worst, because hiring people who actually know something about
the history of programming is difficult and so consequently the software
examiners tend to know even less about the state of the field they are
approving patents in.
The guys on the list might like this Novelty Keyhole Finder patent.
http://goo.gl/mHOVq