
White House nixes Patent Office pick after tech-sector outcry - aaronharnly
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/07/white-house-nixes-patent-office-pick-after-tech-sector-outcry/
======
thinkcomp
And in other news, today the USPTO gave Lockheed Martin a $268,910.52
competition-free contract because it is apparently the "only" company in the
United States writing enterprise software.

[https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=c6652fc...](https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=c6652fc79b8430b1460405f774b76fde&tab=core&_cview=0)

It's good that the White House backed off here, but the USPTO is still an
ungodly mess.

I have been politely asking both USPTO and the White House to fix the problem
where courts report IP assets involved in litigation via a form called AO 120
for some time (months)--to no avail. AO stands for Administrative Office,
which means the judicial branch controls the form. To view all of these forms
on PACER it's $0.10 per page. Fortunately, they're shipped (really, shipped)
to USPTO where they're made available on an automated FOIA site. That's great,
except that they're printed and scanned, and huge numbers of them are filled
out incorrectly; stamped with various crazy stamps; entirely blank in fields,
etc. Also, different courts report case numbers completely differently.

This should be handled with a web-based system that would take most people on
this site a few days to write and test. But here we are, in 2014, trying to
convince the people who decide what is and is not an invention in the United
States of America that they should start using the web.

~~~
ig1
No you couldn't.

You could build something half-baked that didn't work in the majority of
cases.

If you think you could build a fully-operational EDMS system capable of
handling a variety of documents coming in from different source, provide
workflow management, change control, auditing, accurate search, reporting
tools, analytics, third-party integrations (CRM, email,etc.), FOIA support,
etc. in a couple of days then I'd suggest you try it.

There's a reason USPTO wanted an off-the-shelf solution rather than building
their own, it's a lot cheaper and faster to buy something pre-made than to
spend millions building your own.

~~~
dredmorbius
_If you think you could build..._

Oddly enough, The Internet Archive did a substantial portion of just that:
[https://openlibrary.org/dev/docs/bookreader](https://openlibrary.org/dev/docs/bookreader)

It's used by numerous other organizations as well:

[https://openlibrary.org/dev/docs/bookreader#users](https://openlibrary.org/dev/docs/bookreader#users)

~~~
ig1
I don't think you understand what USPTO need, it's not just a scanning system,
it's an entire workflow system.

~~~
dredmorbius
I didn't claim TIA created everything the USPTO requires.

I _did_ point out that they created precisely the element you indicated was
challenging: accomodating different document types from different sources.

Given that the USPTO's system is likely based on electronic filings at this
point, even the scan-and-present aspects of the BookReader solution are likely
more than is required.

Another salient point is that by breaking the problem into discrete
components, you're more likely to come up with a viable solution, or at least
significant portions of one.

And I've worked on a number of systems (FDA clinical information systems)
which address a great deal of your other feature points. Suffice to say: such
systems do in fact exist.

They do, in fairness, take more than a couple of days to assemble.

------
HistoryInAction
Hmm, they're parsing the reports a bit stronger than I am. The nomination is
held back for now, but it hasn't quite shuffled off the mortal coil yet.

PS - If folks are interested, the new satellite USPTO office in San Jose would
love to hear from you! Come to Hacker Dojo and talk to the Hackers & Founders
team if you want help setting something up with the USPTO staff. Or talk to
Silicon Valley Leadership Group, who also has good relationships with them
(probably better, to be fair!).

~~~
dragonwriter
> Hmm, they're parsing the reports a bit stronger than I am. The nomination is
> held back for now, but it hasn't quite shuffled off the mortal coil yet.

Its not even clear that the planned nomination was ever even _real_ \-- it was
claimed in an "e-mail newsletter" by an author citing anonymous "reliable
sources" and then picked up by outlets with broader readership (like Ars) and
reported (and headlined) as fact; whether the origin was a result of real
knowledgeable people leaking information, or a trial balloon, or people
wanting to assure a contrary result pretending to knowledge to create
political pressure in the opposite direction or, the author of an email
newsletter making stuff up to get attention, or any of a million other ways
Washington rumors get manufactured is far from clear.

~~~
forgotAgain
If Senators were commenting on it then it was real.

~~~
dragonwriter
> If Senators were commenting on it then it was real.

Senators comment on things that aren't real (either because of erroneous
beliefs about what is real or because they see political advantage in
commenting even though they correctly believe it to be unreal) all the time.

Senators are, as a class, neither omniscient nor omnibenevolent.

~~~
HistoryInAction
As they say in DC, though, "perception is reality."

------
skosuri
Considering the administration's public statements in the past, this would
have been a pretty surprising pick for them. How sure were people about the
nominee. Also, anyone know anything about the acting director from google?

~~~
neurotech1
Michelle Lee basically came to the USPTO straight from Google, and has a
strong silicon valley background. This is much more so than most other senior
officials from USPTO in DC area.

