Law Professors on Parade?

This picture reminds me of certain law professors endorsing the need for patent reform. Various professors accept the grant rate numbers of Quillen and Webster without mentioning that the QW methodology produces grant rates in excess of 100%. Is the repetition of a fabricated and untrue problem suggestive of a group of parrots all lined up in a row babbling about anything they hear?

The researchoninnovation website has the following text from Mickey Davis of Cleveland State:

Under U.S. procedures, a patent application may be temporarily abandoned and then continued at a later date [IPBiz: false]. Applicants often make use of this system because U.S. law grants patent rights based on the initial filing date [IPBiz: false. See for example 88 JPTOS 743.]. The PTO cannot dismiss an application as long as proper continuation procedures are followed, unless it actually grants a patent [IPBiz: false]. Quillen and Webster point out that according to the rules, applicants can refile to "ensnare innovations commercialized by others after the filing date of the original application." [IPBiz: an inventor with a PENDING application can file another application with claims covering someone else's commercialized embodiment, PROVIDED THAT there is written description and enablement for the new claims, which would mean that the embodiment "commercialized by others" was NOT an innovation.]

Davis also writes: If a rigorous system is undesirable, the authors argue, the present grant rate of 97 percent may be appropriate, but in this case, the PTO should admit that it issues a patent "for virtually every original application."

Perhaps the law professors should admit that there is no such thing as "the present grant rate of 97%."

Note that various issues in patent reform, including the "patent grant rate" confusion and the "plagiarize with pride" platform of the Harvard Business Review, are covered in an article to be published in the Dec. 2006 issue of JPTOS.


Look here and also here.

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IPBiz already received some feedback:

why are you giving parrots a bad name? Comparing law school profs to
parrots-shame on you.

Hey, this really holds for most academics.....parroting about minor
points, subtleties and slights, but never making major insights, but
buffing up the resumes.

Of the comment about "minor points," the law professors in the "patent grant rate" saga are expounding major, FALSE points. Ironically, the same professors who criticize patent examiners for such things as the peanut butter and jelly sandwich patent are unable to recognize that a method which yields a grant rate greater than 100% must be incorrect. The USPTO at least tries to correct its errors, but the fingers of a professor grasping a bad idea remain attached forever.