On Wed, 6 Sep 2000, Dave Ahn wrote: > On Wed, Sep 06, 2000 at 06:45:40PM -0700, Trent Piepho wrote: > > > > The IP lawyers who run the patent office decided it was a good idea. This > > way there are more stupid patents and more lawsuits, thus more profit for the > > patent office and the IP lawyers who run it. It's a blatant conflict of > > interest of course, having policy about something as important as patents > > decided by those who stand to directly profit from those decisions. It would > > be like letting the president decide how long his term is and what his salary > > is. > > This is incorrect. The patents are approved by agents at the PTO, not by > IP lawyers. The PTO generates quite a lot of revenue, but that cash is I'm not talking about the patent examiners who rubber stamp the patents, but rather people like Q. Todd Dickinson, director of the PTO and an IP lawyer. It people like him who are responsible for the "patent everything, let the courts sort it out" policy of the PTO. It's also people like him who benefit most from this policy.