Posts Tagged: "legitimate patent rights"

The Blame Game: Why hasn’t the Patent Office done anything about low quality patents?

The PTAB is instituting 80% of inter partes review (IPR) petitions, which can only be interpreted as clear evidence of the extraordinarily low quality of patent examination at the USPTO. It is unclear why patent examiners are not being taken to task when only 20% of their work product is viewed as satisfactory on its face upon subsequent review by the PTAB. What business could ever exist with an error rate that high? It seems plainly clear on its face – the USPTO must have a serious problem with very low quality performance by patent examiners. So why isn’t the Patent Office doing something to correct the problem? Why aren’t they placing blame on the shoulders of the ultimate decision makers that allow garbage, illegitimate patents?

What are Legitimate Patent Rights and Who are Legitimate Patent Owners?

Use of this phrase strikes me as indefensible because by its very nature it implies picking winners and losers after the Patent Office has already issued a patent and taken money from the inventor. Or worse, it reinforces the two-class patent system that we increasingly see today, between those that “have” the resources to attack or defend patents and the “have nots” (everyone else). Once a patent issues it is a private property right. Period. By definition a patent is legitimate because it exists!