Claim That USPTO, Hostile To Patents, Keeps Moving Goal Posts

The protocol at the U.S. Patent Office is contributing to the country’s stagnating economic recovery and badly needs reform, according to Gene Quinn, attorney at Zies, Widerman & Malek and principal at IPWatchdog, Inc. As an example he traces some history of a recently-issued HP patent, first applied for in 2002. After five years of prosecution, the company filed a notice of appeal, and it was sent to another examiner, who also rejected it. After another appeal, in June of 2010 HP prevailed. The patent was granted this year, 12 years after filing. “Unreasonably long prosecution paths and a propensity to bring up new objections late into the process create a problem both for the patent applicant and for the patent system as a whole,” Quinn writes. He says that if the applicant in the HP case had been a small entity or individual inventor, the patent likely never would have been issued.