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Comment by krick | Hacker News Reader

Funny. Looking at that list I start wondering how that really can happen. Yes, I know that jurisprudence is BS, there's no such thing as justice, etc., but really. I mean, looking at this list makes it so obvious that something isn't right, that I don't understand how she can have a job. That is, it couldn't be that examiner's work isn't overviewed/supervised by other instances, could it? If so, why Ms. Blackman haven't lost her job yet? Why nobody questioned her examination cases? Or maybe she is doing it right and it's only hard to understand if your brain isn't spoiled by law education? Can somebody explain?

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> I mean, looking at this list makes it so obvious that something isn't right, that I don't understand how she can have a job.

Just reading the list gives you no useful information whatsoever about how well or how poorly she is doing her job. All the list has is the abstracts from the patents. A patent abstract is kind of like the blurb on the back of a book, or a trailer for a movie. They give you an overview of what the patent covers, but there will be innumerable ways to accomplish what the abstract describes without infringing the patent.

When you are looking at a list of patents to figure out if you might be infringing one of them, or to figure out if one of them describes a solution to a problem you are trying to find a solution for, the abstract is more of a tool for telling you which patents you can skip rather than what ones you need to take a deeper look at.

To see what the patent actually covers, you have to read the claims. However, the claims are interpreted in light of the specification, so you have to read that, too. A claim may appear to be quite broad, but the discussion in the specification might limit general terms in the claim to very specific values or meanings. In most cases, a patent is not something you can just sit down and quickly understand, even if you are an expert in the field the patent is in.

Even this is not always enough. You should also read the "file wrapper" for the patent. That's the collection of documentation generated during the processing of the patent application. It will include things like the examiner's prior art search results, initial rejections of claims, the letters from the application trying to persuade the examiner to change their mind about rejected claims, answers to questions from the examiner, and stuff like that. You can get the file wrapper online through the "Patent Application Information Retrieval" (PAIR) interface [1].

[1] http://portal.uspto.gov/pair/PublicPair

It took me more years working than it should have to realize this: If someone consistently does a poor job, look up. They aren't the problem.

The self-enclosed member can include an inner surface at least partially defining an enclosed region, and an outer surface that turns outwardly to engage a cavity or lumen wall in addition to turning inward to at least partially encompass a central region defining a longitudinal path.

Why nobody is showing concerns about her to the USPTO? Do US Government agencies have any politics about the general public concerned with the work of the individuals working there?

What about other examiners?

Why nobody is showing concerns about her to the USPTO?

This feels a little too close to being a witchhunt. Once we start talking about "why isn't the internet reporting these people to their employers?" the conversation has stopped being about ideas.

EDIT: The concerns seem justified. I'm just saying that maybe we shouldn't be trying to use HN to organize the end of individual careers.

Calling attention to the fact that this patent was examined by particular individuals seems ok. It's just a fact.

Using HN as an organizational vehicle to help angry people on the internet get some specific people fired, by name, would be a troubling new trend for HN. We're a community, not a task force.

absolutely.. stop here! It's the system not a poor woman working for a giant money printing industry! Challenge the status quo instead of sniping out individuals.

Not everyone has the ability to do both. People should do what they can.

Even though I can't invent a new clean energy source, I try to reduce energy use where I can.

It's an ugly trend, sure. But I think there's something to be said for reporting people to their employers when your concern is that they're doing their job badly, where "badly" here might be read as "incompetently" or "perniciously".

How do you feel about filing complaints against cops for, say, beating up arrestees? What about taking bribes?

If reporting a cop for taking bribes is OK, why is reporting a patent examiner for awarding a patent in the face of prior art bad?

What about reporting a clerk to their manager for speaking to you rudely? Not only does this happen all the time, I don't see a lot of people saying hey, lay off the rude clerks.

edit: a pair of summary examples:

"X is a satanist". This doesn't impact X's performance as a patent officer, or really anything else.

"X couldn't recognize prior art if it was disclosed in the patent application". This directly impacts performance as a patent officer, and can properly be reported to X's employer.

How do you feel about filing complaints against cops for, say, beating up arrestees? What about taking bribes?

Oh, there's no question: I love being beaten by police officers! And bribery is good for the soul, don't you think?

Seriously though, using HN as a way of organizing large numbers of people to action against specific employees is probably stepping a bit too far. That's almost the very definition of an internet witchhunt. Getting these people fired won't fix the underlying problems.

> Oh, there's no question: I love being beaten by police officers! And bribery is good for the soul, don't you think?

Sure, I picked a favorable example. I go on to directly ask you about the analogy: If reporting a cop for taking bribes is OK, why is reporting a patent examiner for awarding a patent in the face of prior art bad? Do you have a response?

> Getting these people fired won't fix the underlying problems

I'd say that depends on how many people get fired. If the effort to throw them out persists, the patent office will change.

Getting one person fired, calling it a victory, and going home is unlikely to fix any underlying problems.

>I'd say that depends on how many people get fired. If the effort to throw them out persists, the patent office will change.

Makes you wonder when someone will throw up a crowd-sourcing website that tracks patent examiners where people can submit/link to questionable patents they awarded and upvote/down vote to get some kind of consensus. I also wonder if people would really care enough to take part in something like that.

Ask Patents seems to be active enough:

http://patents.stackexchange.com/

I guess they aren't interested in focusing on individuals though.

It's funny how branding works, I searched for "patent overflow" to find the site.

Aghh, that completely slipped my mind.

I agree that it's very interesting, and its probably very telling as to the group of people that is probably going to be best equipped to addressing the problem without having to hack away at traditional means that have thus proven themselves highly ineffective/slow moving at this point.

I think that means there is probably going to be a subset of that audience that would participate in something like that but with more focus on individuals and pressuring the patent office to act through some means (email,tax,phone calls, transparency on a systemic issue with some data). I guess this could be a spin on civic engagement.

I'd agree that HN isn't the place generalized advocacy and that the same should be actively discouraged if it happens more than rarely, but, for specific cases such as this one, HN users have a relevant and appropriate interest. Technology patents directly affect HN users' lives and businesses. Furthermore, HN users are particularly well-suited to have educated and well-informed opinions on this particular matter; much more so than most of the general public. It is such an obscure area that interested parties cannot reasonably expect the general public to properly protect their interests.

So, if not here on HN, then where?

* So, if not here on HN, then where?*

If you are referring to a vindictive mob singling out a low-ranking individual for mob justice, nowhere. That's about as far from the hacker ethos and the principles of a functional society as one can get.

>If you are referring to a vindictive mob singling out a low-ranking individual for mob justice, nowhere.

It sounds really terrible when you say it like that.

Well, if it wasn't for all the people in this thread valiantly defending the status quo, we'd be about this close to literally burning some innocent individual at the stake.

That's certainly worth a few frivolous patents, don't you think?

> That's almost the very definition of an internet witchhunt.

Apart from the two defining factors of a witch hunt: (1) irrational (2) assumption of guilt.

I'll grant you the "Internet" part, though.

> Getting these people fired won't fix the underlying problems.

Arguing against taking action is almost guaranteed to let these problems fester and get worse for almost everybody except those very few who are profiting from the situation right now (the ones that you are trying to protect from an imaginary witch hunt, a currently non-existent situation).

Then there's of course evoking the medieval imagery of torture, stake burning and death. Which is maybe appropriate as long as you're actually talking about e.g. the old 4chan (and similar) style "Internet witch hunts", mob justice, personal harassment and bullying.

But it is nothing short of disingenuous when referring to people taking action and filing complaints when they notice someone doing a bad job in a high position of power. Even if those complaints may result in more than just a slap on the wrist (which seems like a likely outcome, anyway).

The fact that people notice this as a group or a community doesn't make it a "witch hunt". And arguing to not do anything just because a lot of people are aware of it, is really quite silly, counter intuitive or counter productive (however you want to call it).

I'd be right with you if there was any suggestion remotely like a 21st century equivalent of stake-burning or mob justice, but there isn't.

Good point. On the other hand, this isn't a case of non-disprovable accusations based on superstition. What it looks like is a case of incompetence. Surely not the only one at the USPTO, but that doesn't excuse it.

Ah yes, the old "just doing my job" line. If people can't hide behind that excuse, they'll be more inclined to act like responsible citizens and human beings.

So please, this is not a witch hunt. It's merely us saying that normal people, like you and me, are behind some of the madness that could potentially affect a giant section of the population. Treat them like human beings, and maybe they'll take the initiative next time without our prompting.

A witch hunt would involve gaming the reporting system to hassle people for irrelevant reasons.

This is at least arguably discussing how to report a legitimate concern.

> A witch hunt would involve gaming the reporting system to hassle people for irrelevant reasons.

Specifically I would say that a witch hunt is characterized by an assumption of guilt, combined with a high false-positive rate, combined with offers for leniency if the accused points their finger at others. That's how the House Un-American Activities Commission did it, and those are the parallels between the HUAC and Salem that Arthur Miller identified.

Merely accusing somebody of doing their job poorly isn't anything like a witch hunt.

> Why nobody is showing concerns about her to the USPTO?

What are the odds that her supervisor has no idea what's going on? They either have a broken quality review process or, more likely, have been told to do more with less for so long that people know they aren't doing good work but need to deliver numbers. Hiring people to work in the federal government is a bitter political issue so it's almost certain that they're understaffed, particularly since the legally-mandated process and payscale will complicate hiring technical experts in fields which pay well.

In either case, you can complain about this person in particular but you really should be contacting your congressional representatives to request both legal reform and increased budget / accountability for the USPTO to avoid some congressman's “savings” costing industry billions when a bad patent is issued.

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