Bonum Certa Men Certa

Wanted: USPTO Whistleblowers

Whistle



Summary: A call for USPTO staff to blow the whistle if misconduct is known and the public needs to know about it

ANY system which maximises profit by granting 'weapons' typically wants more conflict. Just like it's true for the war/defence/arms industry, it is true for the patents industry. Legal wars are a form of war and some people become incredibly rich in the process, irrespective of the outcome.



Patent systems tend to be restrained by a system that is independent from them and decides what is patentable (based on public interest), but what happens when this restraint is removed, corrupted, or made complicit with (or dependent on) the subject of restraint?

"Legal wars are a form of war and some people become incredibly rich in the process, irrespective of the outcome."A war between Apple and Android continues to rage, as covered by Florian Müller the other day. It was also covered in the media, based on the original opinion [PDF]. "Goes to show," one person wrote, "the USPTO is broken (check it out: The USPTO is Broken: New Evidence by Dr. Roy Schestowitz)."

As longtime readers may know, the USPTO is no friend of ours because it's where many of the world's patent trolls (and software patents) come from. It's also easily corruptible by large corporations, which are often running it (worse in that regard than the EPO). A noteworthy fact: USPTO search is powered by Microsoft (is Google not good enough?), which makes one wonder if the USPTO in bed with Microsoft just like EPO.

A source wrote to us regarding what this source called "USPTO corruption", citing this older article of ours.

Amidst all these exposés of the EPO we don't want readers to just assume that the USPTO is much better; perhaps it just needs more whistleblowers. We wrote about USPTO corruption just earlier this year and as we wrote at the time, the USPTO's "attempted cover-up attempts show that rather than deal with the abuses the USPTO became very much complicit."

"My invention," told us our source, "was publicly disclosed on a website/book/video [but then] was stolen and a bunch of guys got a patent on them in less than a year. How can the patent examiner [have] missed these prior arts? The examiner allowed the patent to be expedited because USPTO got paid extra money. Also USPTO is corrupt because it easily allows patent to get approved without doing a thorough search on prior art. USPTO wants people to file for reexamination to invalidate patents that cost on average $16,000. Or even worse they want people to go on litigation for the sake of profit."

We have been covering similar abuses recently, in relation to the EPO, where there is a fast track for special 'partners' (inevitably with no proper prior art search). Leaked evidence (in the form of a documents) makes it unmistakably the case rather than suspicion alone.

We would very much like to start a similar series about abuses by the USPTO, but we have been waiting for people with information like the above to come forward.

People are invited to anonymously provide us any additional details (including documents if any) to allow us to write more about this topic. The unfairness of these systems ought to end. A lot of patent lawyers have been very interested in finding out what the EPO does wrong; perhaps the USPTO too has a lot of 'dirty laundry'.

"Software patents have been nothing but trouble for innovation. We the software engineers know this, yet we actually have full-blown posters in our break-room showcasing the individual engineers who came up with something we were able to push through the USPTO. Individually, we pretty much all consider the software-patent showcase poster to be a colossal joke." —Kelledin, PLI: State Street Overruled... PERIOD

Recent Techrights' Posts

'India Today' is a Slopfarm, Sometimes 'Covering' "Linux" With Slop Images
New example of pure BS
Rumours of IBM Layoffs Again, This Time Marketing
It's "bad marketing" to talk about layoffs
Slopwatch: linuxsecurity.com and hamradio.my (in Planet Ubuntu) Are at It Again With LLM Slop About "Linux"
LLM slop does not save time
Bluewashing Ends DEI at IBM and at Red Hat (HR or Hiring Become Gender- and Race-Neutral)
All that "whitelist is racist" stuff is likely a thing of the past
 
Sierra Leone: Android Up to Record Highs, Windows Falls to Record Lows of Almost 5% (15 Years Ago It Was 100%)
This is what happens when about 83% of Web requests come from mobile
Margarita Manterola (marga, Google) & Debian DebConf13 Swiss venue intrigue
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, March 14, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, March 14, 2025
Gemini Links 14/03/2025: Grizzy Bear and Prime Beats
Links for the day
Links 14/03/2025: ProPublica Admitting That It Uses Slop (Foolish Move), RIP Mark Klein
Links for the day
Windows is Fast Becoming Insignificant to Zimbabweans
based on this survey, less than 1 in 6 Web requests may originate from Windows
The Fall of the Open Source Initiative (OSI): The OSI Does Not Speak For You, OSI Staff Speaks for GAFAM/Microsoft (the Paymasters)
they speak for proprietary software companies, but they wear "open" on their sleeve
Microsoft Money Used for Abuse of Women and Against Journalism in Support of Women (the Victims)
"Never interrupt your opponent while he is in the middle of making a mistake."
Links 14/03/2025: Chinese Tensions With Australia, Putin Turns Down Ceasefire
Links for the day
Gemini Links 14/03/2025: Löjl and Docker Context Stuff
Links for the day
Links 14/03/2025: Scam Currencies in the US and Oligarchs (Including GAFAM) Controlling All the Major Policies
Links for the day
Antisemitic Attacks on Richard Matthew Stallman (RMS) in Wikipedia This Week
Did the man strike a nerve or what?
Links 13/03/2025: Intel Rotates Figurehead and South Korea Imports Karen People From Myanmar
Links for the day
Meanwhile at Microsoft Canonical...
Promoting proprietary surveillance by a company that actively attacks Linux in a lot of ways
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, March 13, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, March 13, 2025
Links 13/03/2025: Calculators and Spreadsheets, Returning to a Human Internet
Links for the day
Links 13/03/2025: Further Assaults on Science and Education in the US
Links for the day
Expect XBox to Be Shut Down Like Skype
"hey hi"-washing fools nobody
Truth Hurts (Especially Some Dishonest and/or Greedy People), But Reporting Truth is What Makes Journalism Valuable to the General Public and Helps Protect Society From Abuse by Sociopaths or Pathological Liars
When it comes to reporting, we're on the side of female victims, not the men who strangle them.
New Paper Reveals the Web (and Net) Drowns in LLM Slop, "Linux" is Impacted Too
It will be getting harder to trust anything on the Web
Links 13/03/2025: RIP, Carl Lundström; Tesla (the Company, Not Scientist It Piggybacks) Besieged by Public Backlash
Links for the day
Gemini Links 13/03/2025: MElon "Greek Tragedy" and Going Offline More
Links for the day
Richard Matthew Stallman, or rms (RMS), Turns 72 This Coming Weekend
This coming Sunday he deserves a cake
Links 13/03/2025: COVID-19 Legacies and "Modern" Cars as Spying Machines on Wheels
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, March 12, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, March 12, 2025