This strip is firmly tongue-in-cheek, but it does reflect a growing problem with Patent Examination at the Patent and Trademark Office. Over the last 8 years there’s been a disturbing trend of more and more rejections based on shoddy prior art searches, and subject matter deemed unpatentable based on a mere assertion, rather than coherent reasoning.
The Supreme Court didn’t help when they attempted to clarify the standard for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. ยง 103 (KSR v Teleflex). The holdings in KSR are now often used by Examiners as a free pass when formulating obviousness rejections.
The net result is prolonged examination and more Appeals, all of which amount to a de facto tax on inventors and their employers. If you want this country to climb out of recession, the LAST thing you should be doing is throwing up higher hurdles for innovators and creating artificial barriers that prevent their products from entering the marketplace.
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