PTO pwned.
Apr. 1st, 2008 10:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elwenThe district judge permanently enjoined all of the proposed rule-changes issued by the Patent Office. Wow. Everyone thought he'd say something like: well, parts of the rules are no good, and you can't impose them retrospectively, but going forward, the 2+1 and 5/25 rules are go. I think a lot of practitioners were acting under that assumption, anyway.
I didn't pay attention to who else wanted the rules to go through. If there are people in Congress who liked them, I guess they can just throw them into the patent reform package, which should get spit out of there someday. It's not a problem of constitutionality or something; just that the statute authorizing the Patent Office to make rule-changes doesn't extend to letting them make "substantive" changes, and the judge found that these rules were substantive. Also, I wonder if the government will appeal.
I mean, this isn't an April Fool's joke, right? Even Dennis Crouch doesn't have the free time to write up a fake 26 page opinion striking down the rules, does he? And he wouldn't go so far as to fake Judge Cacheris' e-signature and the e-filing header, would he?
I dunno, I don't have a lot to say about it. I'm just surprised. Maybe I should pay more attention now . . . if all the action isn't over already.
I didn't pay attention to who else wanted the rules to go through. If there are people in Congress who liked them, I guess they can just throw them into the patent reform package, which should get spit out of there someday. It's not a problem of constitutionality or something; just that the statute authorizing the Patent Office to make rule-changes doesn't extend to letting them make "substantive" changes, and the judge found that these rules were substantive. Also, I wonder if the government will appeal.
I mean, this isn't an April Fool's joke, right? Even Dennis Crouch doesn't have the free time to write up a fake 26 page opinion striking down the rules, does he? And he wouldn't go so far as to fake Judge Cacheris' e-signature and the e-filing header, would he?
I dunno, I don't have a lot to say about it. I'm just surprised. Maybe I should pay more attention now . . . if all the action isn't over already.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-02 08:42 am (UTC)From the teensy tiny taste of patent law I got in Fall, even I can register this is BIG. And surprising.