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REDUCING FIRST OFFICE ACTION PENDENCY TO ONE WEEK

Most patent applicants are forced to wait upwards of two years to receive the first review of their patent application by patent offices - to receive their first Office Action Rejection. For smaller businesses, this is a disastrous amount of time, the uncertainty created then frustrating their efforts to raise money, do business deals, license the technology, etc. This is an unacceptable, especially in today's very rapidly moving global economies. To wait two years to have a mostly-text document analyzed is unacceptable.

Side note: what is the difference between customer support services of the USPTO and of the IRS (both agencies responsible for horribly written complex laws)? The difference is that the customer of the IRS is the taxpayer. The customer of the USPTO is the patent lawyer. To understand this, consider what happens when you submit a tax return / patent application to these agencies.

When you make a mistake with your tax return, does the IRS write back: "You made a mistake with your tax return, you didn't follow the law correctly. Guess again."? Of course not. The IRS writes back with: "You made a mistake. Here is what we think the current tax payment is for you. If you agree, pay the difference, otherwise explain why we are wrong." And usually, the IRS is correct. The IRS understands tax law.

The USPTO, on the other hand, writes back "Your patent claims fail 101, 102, 103 and 112. Guess again." Because the USPTO knows how your claims fail the law, they know how your claims can be corrected to satisfy the patent law. The USPTO understands patent law. But since you, the inventor, is not their customer, they force you to pay your lawyer to guess again.

The following suggestions will help the USPTO be more proactive to their real clients: patent applicants.
However, with a few simple, low cost, tweaks to the patent application process, ALL patent offices around the world can provide a First Office Action within one week of filing. Here is how, below. All the patent offices need to implement these changes is for patent bar associations and patent law firms - your patent lawyers whose salaries you pay for - to use their clout with politicians to provide the patent offices with a small amount of additional financial support to implement the following tweaks.


STEP ONE: STANDARDIZED PATENT SECTION HEADERS:

Every patent/application should use the same section titles, e.g., "FIELD OF THE INVENTION", "BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION", "SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION". None of these elaborate, pointless, titles, such as "DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS OF THE DISCLOSED TECHNOLOGY". And these sections should have standardized preambles (see preamble silliness with "FIELD" below). This semantics should have be standardized decades ago. Over 500,000 patent applications are produced by law firms each year - this is an industry. Industries have standards to reduce costs. It is time to standardize the structure of patent applications. It costs the applicants nothing. It helps patent offices more efficiently process patent applications. That there is no ISO standard in XML for patent application documents is a crime (or should be).


STEP TWO: STANDARDIZE A FEW BOILERPLATE PARAGRAPHS:

The vast majority of patents have one or more paragraphs at the end that state little more than "I CLAIM EVERYTHING DESCRIBED ABOVE PLUS ANY OBVIOUS EQUIVALENT VARIANT." Why? The courts don't pay any attention to this language. Patent examiners don't pay any attention to this language. Worse, you would think law firms would use the same boilerplate paragraph for all of its clients, but they don't. Either the USPTO should mandate that these paragraphs not be included (there is also one at the beginning of the Detailed Description - "THE FOLLOWING ARE JUST EXAMPLES OF MY INVENTION, NOT ALL EMBODIMENTS!)", or write some standardized boilerplate and require everyone to use the same. Around the world. Something for WIPO to coordinate.


STEP THREE: STANDARDIZE BOILERPLATE DEFINITIONS:

Many patent have some paragraphs where simple grammatical terms are defined, such as "and/or", "above/below", "connected/coupled", etc. These definitions are neither for the inventors, nor for other technologists reading the patent, nor for patent examiners, etc. No, these paragraphs are a weak attempt by patent lawyers to prevent patent judges from destroying your patent by exploiting some idiotic grammatical error (see Chef America). Frankly, I don't think these paragraphs have any affect on judges. But at least have the USPTO and other patent offices mandate that a "DEFINITIONS OF THE INVENTION" section, where definitions are included, to appear at the end of the "DETAILED DESCRIPTION", with a standardized preamble for the definitions, and at least a few agreed-upon definitions.


STEP FOUR: STANDARDIZE A DESCRIPTION OF A COMPUTER:

Every software patent has a description of the computer that the software is enabled with. THE WORLD NEEDS JUST ONE SUCH DESCRIPTION. Seriously, how many hundreds of millions of dollars do patent applicants have to waste each year to pay patent lawyers to write the same basic story? Worse, examiners and judges don't read these descriptions. Worse, when judges do use these paragraphs, they argue that the hardware is generic computing technology (thanks to your definitions), and the rest of your invention is some 'abstract' software idea that is not patentable.

So, if this computer description is needed, the USPTO should write one set of standardized definitions (one that uses set theory, and incorporates the Church-Turing thesis), and have everyone include them in their patent applications. One reason for the USPTO to do so is that most patent lawyers write these descriptions inadequately (e.g., patent lawyers inadvertently describing a computing system in a way that teaches an infringer how to work-around). The USPTO should write one such description, and mandate everyone use it.

Better yet, the descriptions written by the USPTO for Steps 2,3,4 can be put in one document (even published as a patent application), and have that document Incorporated by Reference in all patents/applications, so no one ever has to read these texts that don't "Progress The Arts".


STEP FIVE: HIRE THREE EXPERT PATENT ANALYSTS EMPOWERED WITH SOMETHING EQUIVALENT TO SPO'S ANALYZER:

Every week, before patents are analyzed by the SPO Patent Analyzer, human experts briefly examine the text of each patent, annotating the patents with flags indicating various conditions for the Analyzer to focus on. Pure automation is impossible nor useful. The human touch is needed. Thus, the USPTO would need to hire a small number of patent analysts - Mechanical, Chemical, and Electrical, etc., - to apply the expert touch before the USPTO's AI systems do their analysis. And with an advanced (BERTy) version of such AI systems (such as the one being developed by the SPO), this First Office Action can include a few, on-point, preliminary prior art results - help the applicant narrow their claims to achieve an honest scope for their claims, and not waste money on Continuations.


STEP SIX: MAKE XML DATA FILES LOGICALLY CORRECT/CONSISTENT:

The USPTO's data files, in XML format, are not logically consistent nor correctly, nor completely, consistent with XML style guidelines. Pet peeve. Not essential to fix now.

IMPLEMENT THESE FIVE STEPS, AND THE FIRST OFFICE ACTION PENDENCY CAN BE REDUCED TO ONE WEEK. IT CAN BE IMPLEMENTED IN ONE MONTH. THE COST IS NEGLIGIBLE. THERE ARE NO MORE EXCUSES FOR MULTI-YEAR FOA PENDENCIES.
NONE. NADA. KEINER. NASHI. MÉIYǑU.

These five steps are easy to implement, and will have a huge impact on reducing patent pendency, and help true inventors obtain patent protection much more rapidly, so they can better engage in commerce. That I am having to propose this in the year 2022 is a good example of why the entire Editorial Board of the New York Times, on Easter 2022, demanded that The United States Patent and Trademark Office is in dire need of reform (Archive). That truly would be a resurrection.

As a measure of the complete corruption of the global software patent system, the current version of the SPO's Analyzer is context-free (if you don't know the implication of this, you shouldn't be involved in any way with software patents.) Which means that the current version of the Analyzer can be translated into every language in the world. So this Web page isn't a criticism so much of the USPTO, as it is a criticism of all global patent offices (and the bureaurats at WIPO), because all of the patent offices in the world - CNIPA, EPO, JPO, CIPO and the rest -- can reduce First Office Action pendencies down to one week. WIPO could easily afford to develop a Patent Office AI Analyzer within one year, and then make it available to all patent offices around the world.

OPTIONAL SUGGESTIONS::

OBNOXIOUS SUGGESTIONS::

MEANINGLESS VARIATIONS OF THE PREAMBLE PHRASE FOR "FIELDS":

ISO documentation standards exist to eliminate the following bullshit. The amount of meaningless variational crap-semantics like this in patents is in the gigabytes.

     Aspects of the present disclosure generally relate to
     Aspects of various embodiments are directed to
     Embodiments of the invention relate
     Embodiments of the present invention relate
     Embodiments of the present disclosure relate
     Embodiments presented herein generally relate
     Embodiments relate generally to
     Exemplary embodiments of the present system generally relate to
     Inventions herein relate to
     Some embodiments may relate to a
     The exemplary embodiments of present invention relate
     The field of representative embodiments of this disclosure relates to
     The field of the present invention
     The following generally relates to
     This description relates to
     The disclosure herein relates
     This disclosure is directed to
     This disclosure is related to
     The disclosure relates to
     This disclosure relates
     The following relates
     The invention addressed herein relates
     The invention concerns
     The invention describes
     The invention is based on
     The invention is concerned with
     The invention is in relation to
     The invention is in the field of
     The invention pertains to
     The invention refers to
     The invention relates in general
     The invention relates in particular
     The invention relates to
     The invention generally relates to
     The invention further relates to
     The invention initially relates to
     This invention generally relates to
     This invention lies in the field of
     This invention relates, in one aspect, to
     This invention relates to
     This invention relates generally to
     This patent document pertains generally to
     The present application relates
     The present disclosure concerns
     The present disclosure is directed
     The present disclosure pertains
     The present disclosure relates
     The present disclosure generally relates
     The present disclosure also relates
     The present embodiments relate to
     The present exemplary embodiments relate to
     The present invention concerns
     The present invention generally relates
     The present invention is generally directed to
     The present invention is directed generally to
     The present invention is directed to
     The present invention is in the field of
     The present invention is related to
     The present invention lines in
     The present invention provides a
     The present invention refers to
     The present invention relates
     The present Invention relates
     The present invention, in some embodi
     The present patent application relates to
     The present subject matter relates
     The present system relates to
     The present specification relates
     The present technique relates to
     The present technique relate to
     The present techniques generally relate
     The present techniques relate to
     The present technology is directed to
     The present technology relates to
     The specification relates to
     The subject disclosure relates to
     The subject of the invention is
     The subject matter disclosed herein generally
     The subject matter described herein mainly relates      Within this aim, an object of the present invention

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