Re: patent on computer screen advertising

> I'm currently enrolled in a Patent Offices Practice course in law
> school, and showed the claim to my professor (Ed Taylor, of Blakely
> Sokoloff Taylor & Zafman). He termed it "criminal."
>
> A classmate remarked that a few years ago, there was an incident of a
> particular patent examiner who was leaving the Office, and who was
> essentially rubber-stamping nearly any application in order to get
> his brownie points prior to his departure. (This may be apocryphal
> for all we know, he conceded.) If this is true, I wonder if this is
> that examiner?
>
> Terry Carroll
> <tcarroll[_at_]scuacc.scu.edu>

I have heard a similar story. A patent I saw last fall seemed to fall into that catagory. The applicant had been rejected on two different applications primarily on the basis of lack of enablement. The applicant then filed a CIP based on the two rejected applications, which was quickly allowed. There was less enablement the third time (no disclosure at all of a 120 man year software development requirement of OS code), and art cited against the first two applications would have knocked out a number of the claims in the third (the examiner obviously never read the underlying apps). Just as importantly, the claims were a mess. For example, a method claim was allowed, without any steps. (I don't know if that is as bad as the "and/or" language in the patent under discussion). Indeed, almost all of the claims should have been rejected on a basis of formality (i.e. indefinate). The story was that the examiner was sliding towards retirement, and was relieved shortly thereafter.

Bruce E. Hayden                 1720 South Bellaire Street
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