Examiners' union criticises Lemley study
27 August 2010
Eileen McDermott, New York
A study claiming that USPTO examiners ignore prior art submitted by applicants has earned the wrath of the head of the patent examiners' union
Robert Budens, president of the Patent Office Professional Association (POPA), dubbed the study's authors - professors Mark Lemley, Chris Cotropia and Bhaven Sampat - "biased" and said that their paper asks the wrong fundamental question.
"What they should be asking is whether the art that the examiners applied was as good as or better than the applicant-submitted art," said Budens in an interview with Managing IP.
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| Robert Budens |
The study found that examiners usually cited art they searched for and found, rather than art submitted by applicants, using data from the prosecution history of a random sample of 1,192 ultimately issued patents.
But Budens said that the art submitted by applicants is often irrelevant.
"I do think it's fair to say that examiners put more faith in their own searches, but there are...
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