01.14.16

Gemini version available ♊︎

USPTO Doubled the Number of Granted Patents in Just a Few Years, Demonstrating Very Sharp Decline in Patent Quality

Posted in America, Patents at 6:58 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

The higher one goes, the lesser/lower the quality

Graph

Summary: Numerical evidence of the great decline in US patents quality, which in recent years gave way to a lot more patent litigation, patent trolls (that exploit software patents), complaints about the patent system, and invalidations inside US courts

BOTH the EPO and the USPTO pretend that more patents would be better. It’s a dangerous, popular but nevertheless wrong assumption. IP Watch wrote yesterday that:

The number of patent applications filed worldwide continues to increase, up by 4.6 percent in 2014 for a total of nearly 2.7 million, according to the 2015 edition of the World Intellectual Property Indicators. The increasing number of patents filed worldwide demonstrates the strength of ongoing innovation and the value companies put on protecting their intellectual property where they wish to do business. The filing numbers would likely be even higher, and across more countries, if the filers were more prepared for the costs associated with filing patents.

An article by Dennis Crouch says that “the Federal Circuit has ruled that the IPR procedure allowing the same PTAB panel to both institute an IPR and issue the final decision cancelling the claims. in the process, the divided court rejected both a constitutional and statutory challenge.” Another new piece from Crouch says: “As expected, the USPTO issued just under 300,000 utility patents in calendar year 2015. The new number represents a drop from 2014 – the first drop since President Obama took office and appointed David Kappos as USPTO Director. Barring a new radical transformation of the Office, I expect that the grant numbers will hover around this mark for the next several years.”

“IBM has a history of patent aggression and it promotes software patents in Europe and in New Zealand, not just in the US.”Under David Kappos, the Office has been pressuring examiners to just approve faster, leading to the unbelievable situation where 92% of applications are ultimately approved. What’s even the point of examination with such high acceptance rates? Innovation didn’t accelerate, but the number of patents nearly doubled, which means that the quality of patents went down considerably (unless one has another explanation; the economic downturn definitely wasn’t it).

“IBM tops US patent list for 23rd year,” WIPR wrote yesterday, noting that “IBM has topped the list of recipients of US patents in 2015, beating Samsung and Canon to the top spot, but there has been a slight decline in the overall number of patents granted since 2014.”

IBM has a history of patent aggression and it promotes software patents in Europe and in New Zealand, not just in the US.

Here is what Reuters wrote about it: “International Business Machines Corp (IBM.N) was granted the most U.S. patents for the 23rd year in a row in 2015, according to a ranking by patent analysis firm IFI Claims Patents Services.

“There were 298,407 utility patents granted in 2015, down slightly from 2014, IFI Claims said on Wednesday. IBM gained 7,355 patents last year. Utility patents cover function rather than design.”

Who on Earth can conceivably keep track of this many patents. The whole purpose of this system is lost due to overload. It’s good for patent lawyers (and their richest clients), bad for everybody else.

Over at TechDirt there’s a summary of some of these issues, based on a writeup from Masnick. “Qualcomm Says It’s Fighting For The Little Guy, While Really Blocking Patent Reform That Would Help The Little Guy” is the headline. To quote a part which covers trolls and Alice: “Three out of the five panelists — Kate Doerksen, Lee Cheng and Brian Mennell — represented victims of patent trolls. Kate and Brian both have experienced the perils of being a small startup and getting hit with patent lawsuits that have the potential to destroy their businesses. You can read Kate’s story here, in which she’s being sued by a large company trying to keep her startup from competing altogether. It’s even reached the point where Kate agreed to something of a deal with the devil: Erich Spangenberg. As we’ve discussed, Spangenberg, who was one of the most aggressive patent trolls, recently shifted his business into being a sort of reverse patent troll, where he makes deals with small companies like Kate’s, taking an ownership stake in the company in exchange for “helping” the company deal with patent trolls, usually by seeking post-grant review to invalidate the patents being asserted against the startups.

“Mennell has the classic patent troll story of running a startup and getting hit by a patent troll that undermines the ability of the company to stay in business (and also notes that the Supreme Court’s Alice decision made him lose a business method patent, though he doesn’t seem to see that as problematic).”

In this current landscape of patents/patenting it is only good to be a massive corporation such as IBM, a patent troll, or a patent lawyer. Finjan, which has become a bit like a patent troll, isn’t doing too badly.

If examiners are led to believe that more patents mean more “success”, then they probably need to reassess their views. More patents typically mean lower barrier to acceptance or, in other words, lower quality of patents.

Share in other sites/networks: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
  • Reddit
  • email

Decor ᶃ Gemini Space

Below is a Web proxy. We recommend getting a Gemini client/browser.

Black/white/grey bullet button This post is also available in Gemini over at this address (requires a Gemini client/browser to open).

Decor ✐ Cross-references

Black/white/grey bullet button Pages that cross-reference this one, if any exist, are listed below or will be listed below over time.

Decor ▢ Respond and Discuss

Black/white/grey bullet button If you liked this post, consider subscribing to the RSS feed or join us now at the IRC channels.

DecorWhat Else is New


  1. Links 30/05/2023: LibreOffice 7.6 in Review and More Digital Restrictions (DRM) From HP

    Links for the day



  2. Gemini Links 30/05/2023: Curl Still Missing the Point?

    Links for the day



  3. IRC Proceedings: Monday, May 29, 2023

    IRC logs for Monday, May 29, 2023



  4. MS (Mark Shuttleworth) as a Microsoft Salesperson

    Canonical isn’t working for GNU/Linux or for Ubuntu; it’s working for “business partners” (WSL was all along about promoting Windows)



  5. First Speaker in Event for GNU at 40 Called for Resignation/Removal of GNU's Founder

    It’s good that the FSF prepares an event to celebrate GNU’s 40th anniversary, but readers told us that the speakers list is unsavoury, especially the first one (a key participant in the relentless campaign of defamation against the person who started both GNU and the FSF; the "FSFE" isn't even permitted to use that name)



  6. When Jokes Became 'Rude' (or Disingenuously Misinterpreted by the 'Cancel Mob')

    A new and more detailed explanation of what the wordplay around "pleasure card" actually meant



  7. Site Updates and Plans Ahead

    A quick look at or a roundup of what we've been up to, what we plan to publish in the future, what topics we shall focus on very soon, and progress moving to Alpine Linux



  8. Links 29/05/2023: Snap and PipeWire Plans as Vendor Lock-in

    Links for the day



  9. Gemini Links 29/05/2023: GNU/Linux Pains and More

    Links for the day



  10. Links 29/05/2023: Election in Fedora, Unifont 15.0.04

    Links for the day



  11. Gemini Links 29/05/2023: Rosy Crow 1.1.1 and Smolver 1.2.1 Released

    Links for the day



  12. IRC Proceedings: Sunday, May 28, 2023

    IRC logs for Sunday, May 28, 2023



  13. Daniel Stenberg Knows Almost Nothing About Gemini and He's Likely Just Protecting His Turf (HTTP/S)

    The man behind Curl, Daniel Stenberg, criticises Gemini; but it's not clear if he even bothered trying it (except very briefly) or just read some inaccurate, one-sided blurbs about it



  14. Links 29/05/2023: Videos Catchup and Gemini FUD

    Links for the day



  15. Links 28/05/2023: Linux 6.4 RC4 and MX Linux 23 Beta

    Links for the day



  16. Gemini Links 28/05/2023: Itanium Day, GNUnet DHT, and More

    Links for the day



  17. Links 28/05/2023: eGates System Collapses, More High TCO Stories (Microsoft Windows)

    Links for the day



  18. IRC Proceedings: Saturday, May 27, 2023

    IRC logs for Saturday, May 27, 2023



  19. No More Twitter, Mastodon, and Diaspora for Tux Machines (Goodbye to Social Control Media)

    People would benefit from mass abandonment of such pseudo-social pseudo-media.



  20. Links 28/05/2023: New Wine and More

    Links for the day



  21. Links 27/05/2023: Plans Made for GNU's 40th Anniversary

    Links for the day



  22. Social Control Media Needs to be Purged and We Need to Convince Others to Quit It Too (to Protect Ourselves as Individuals and as a Society)

    With the Tux Machines anniversary (19 years) just days away we seriously consider abandoning all social control media accounts of that site, including Mastodon and Diaspora; social control networks do far more harm than good and they’ve gotten a lot worse over time



  23. Anonymously Travelling: Still Feasible?

    The short story is that in the UK it's still possible to travel anonymously by bus, tram, and train (even with shades, hat and mask/s on), but how long for? Or how much longer have we got before this too gets banned under the false guise of "protecting us" (or "smart"/"modern")?



  24. With EUIPO in Focus, and Even an EU Kangaroo Tribunal, EPO Corruption (and Cross-Pollination With This EU Agency) Becomes a Major Liability/Risk to the EU

    With the UPC days away (an illegal and unconstitutional kangaroo court system, tied to the European Union in spite of critical deficiencies) it’s curious to see EPO scandals of corruption spilling over to the European Union already



  25. European Patent Office (EPO) Management Not Supported by the EPO's Applicants, So Why Is It Still There?

    This third translation in the batch is an article similar to the prior one, but the text is a bit different (“Patente ohne Wert”)



  26. EPO Applicants Complain That Patent Quality Sank and EPO Management Isn't Listening (Nor Caring)

    SUEPO has just released 3 translations of new articles in German (here is the first of the batch); the following is the second of the three (“Kritik am Europäischen Patentamt – Patente ohne Wert?”)



  27. German Media About Industry Patent Quality Charter (IPQC) and the European Patent Office (EPO)

    SUEPO has just released 3 translations of new articles in German; this is the first of the three (“Industrie kritisiert Europäisches Patentamt”)



  28. Geminispace Continues to Grow Even If (or When) Stéphane Bortzmeyer Stops Measuring Its Growth

    A Gemini crawler called Lupa (Free/libre software) has been used for years by Stéphane Bortzmeyer to study Gemini and report on how the community was evolving, especially from a technical perspective; but his own instance of Lupa has produced no up-to-date results for several weeks



  29. Links 27/05/2023: Goodbyes to Tina Turner

    Links for the day



  30. HMRC: You Can Click and Type to Report Crime, But No Feedback or Reference Number Given

    The crimes of Sirius ‘Open Source’ were reported 7 days ago to HMRC (equivalent to the IRS in the US, more or less); but there has been no visible progress and no tracking reference is given to identify the report


RSS 64x64RSS Feed: subscribe to the RSS feed for regular updates

Home iconSite Wiki: You can improve this site by helping the extension of the site's content

Home iconSite Home: Background about the site and some key features in the front page

Chat iconIRC Channel: Come and chat with us in real time

Recent Posts