Professor Thomas to testify at hearings on HR 2795

Professor John Thomas is scheduled as a witness in tomorrow's [Sept. 15] hearings on HR 2795.

In The Question Concerning Patent Law and Pioneer Inventions, 10 High Tech.
L.J. 35, 100 (1995), Thomas referred to examiners as "notoriously overworked," but in 2001 U. Ill. L. Rev. 305, 324 discussed the lack of trained patent examiners in
high-tech fields.

Thomas noted: "A review of the contemporary patent instrument cannot be a charitable one. In terms of their format and fit with the patent statute, modern patents do a woefully poor job of recording the proprietary interests of inventors."

Thomas has criticized the use of prosecution history documents to interpret claims: Professor Thomas quite rightly critiqued the way that reliance on prosecution history documents from outside the patent itself, which are voluminous and costly to
obtain, distorts the claim construction process. [see 47 UCLA L. Rev. 183 (1999)]

Miller noted: Like Professor Thomas, I do not put much stock in the notion
that a modest increase in patent application costs will drive many people away
from the patent system in favor of trade secret protection, or diminish the
general level of innovation: "our experience suggests that the demand for patent
examination services is relatively inelastic."