Can anyone find out who they are?
Of course you can. You can find the examiner who reviewed this patent, you can find the references cited in the rejection, which precipitated the amendments to the claims. You can even find his phone number and email address. I wonder if there is any form of moral hazard in the uspo office,
possibly in the form of workers being incentivized to issue patents
They are incentivized to reject applications multiple times, to force an RCE, etc. via a point-based performance metric. Prosecuting a patent is not a walk in the park. Rejections get you points. Allowances do not get you points. Maybe offices or workers are granting patents for the sake of being
able to show a high number of patents issued at the end of the year.
This shot in the dark is totally baseless, and incorrect. I do know that something needs to change, a change that
hopefully adds transparency and holds people responsible.
How transparent do you want it? Do you want every office action made public? Do you want all communication between the examiner and the applicant to be made public? Do you want all responses to the rejections and references asserted as prior art for purposes of anticipation (novelty) or obviousness (inventive step) to be listed out for the entire world to see?OH WAIT. IT ALREADY IS.