I like the "Dirty Foot" mnemonic! It suits the quality characteristics of US patent facepages, as well as data fields derived from those facepages. The current discussion thread focuses on application serial numbers & priorities as disclosed on US patents' facepages. I'll suggest another field of data derived from US facepages that has contained significant numbers of errors over the years, viz., Cited Reference Patent Numbers. Five or six years ago, I went through an exercise of retrieving all of my employer's patents on ORBIT in a US patents database from which I could extract all the Cited Refs, US. I then tried to confirm that I had all of those patents available in a locally searchable patents tool I maintained. When I started to encounter 10-20% of the cited reference patents which weren't in my collection, which I thought should have been 95+% complete, I started investigating samples of the cited reference patent numbers. I consistently found between 10-20% of the cited reference U
S patents numbers contained errors, either in the patent number itself, or in a mismatch between the cited patent number and the original class or inventors names found after the cited references. Clearly, I couldn't take US cited reference patent numbers at face, or facepage, value!
Does this indicate a quality problem in the production of US patents? Duh!? But this is not soley the PTO's problem, nor the various printing contractors used over the years by the PTO to produce the printed US patent specs. Consider how rarely you see Certificates of Correction with US patents compared to how often you find obvious errors in both the facepage and claims of US patents. The applicants contribute to the proliferation of errors as does the PTO and its internal processes and subcontractors.
R
oy Zimmermann
Patent Information Specialist
763-505-2527
763-505-2530 (FAX)
roy.zimmermann@medtronic.com
roy_zimmermann@hotmail.com
rzimmerma@aol.com
>>> Robert Buntrock <buntrock2@earthlink.net> 01/11/02 12:40PM >>>
Nicholas White wrote:
> However, Stu is making an important point and raising an important issue
> that should be addressed by the patent offices.
>
> The emphasis should be on not making the mistakes in the first place.
> This is in the hands of the patent offices, which have control of the
> printed record.
Right on. Anyone who has taken Crosby Quality training or any of its
derivatives knows the basic tenet, "Dirty Foot" -- Do It Right The First
Time -- is absolutely essential to effective quality control. In a
previous life I believed that the only errors were occasional ones in
assignments (e.g., Standard Oil Co. Chicago stet Standard Oil Co.
Indiana, etc.) apparently even more serious errors are on the increase.
Of course, if patent offices don't acknowledge these problems and if the
only incentive for examiners is to crank out n examinations per day --
or else -- errors will continue to increase.
-- Bob Buntrock
Buntrock Associates, Inc.
**********************************************************************
This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and
intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they
are addressed. If you have received this email in error please notify
the system manager.
This footnote also confirms that this email message has been swept by
MIMEsweeper for the presence of computer viruses.
www.mimesweeper.com
**********************************************************************
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Feb 14 2003 - 11:56:37 GMT