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May 12, 2008
In The Weeds
Rep.
Howard Berman, Chairman of the House subcommittee overseeing the USPTO, does his
job in an
April
29 letter to PTO Director Jon Dudas, demanding answers: did you sully the
agency's reputation by consorting with RIM when it was under the gun from NTP,
and you had NTP patents under reexamination?; why haven't you considered
deferred examination?; explain inconsistencies in patent application projection
for the future; document methodology in meeting application demand; why so
pig-headedly clueless about examiner attrition?; justify managerial lurching in
its various incarnations. One surmises from such inquiries that, under Dudas'
direction, the PTO hasn't exactly been on the path of probity.
Thanks to Hal Wegner, who thanked Greg Aharonian for the copy of Rep. Berman's letter.
Posted by Patent Hawk at May 12, 2008 4:32 PM | The Patent Office
Comments
To borrow a phrase from PatentDocs...
Hooray! - (Finally) the Big Dogs Have Joined the Hunt
Posted by: NIPRA anonymous at May 12, 2008 6:32 PM
It's amusingly ironic to see a major patent reform sponsor come to the rescue of a "patent troll", is he moving on…? ;)
Posted by: Regata De Blank at May 13, 2008 12:09 PM
This whole post and others like it around the web make the situation out to be more than the letter is actually about.
Easy answers from Dudas:
NTP case- no there were not discussions about substantive matters involved in the case as the restrictions prohibit.
Deferred examination- as far as we are aware the office is not allowed to defer examination as it appears the laws mandate that an examination shall be made with each app examined in its turn.
I'd say we'd like nothing more than to defer examination.
Posted by: e6k at May 25, 2008 3:20 PM