Like other examiners,
Wang Guilian’s day is driven by a quest for
consistency and meeting targets. She is surrounded by clever
colleagues: almost all of the 300 or so re-examiners have a
science or engineering degree, more than half have studied law
and almost two-thirds have a master’s degree or
Phd. Wang herself is an engineer with degrees in US law and
Chinese law. She also describes how SIPO has been
transformed by technology, which has turned the office
paperless and allowed examiners to work from home.
That’s going to be increasingly important as
Beijing congestion grinds the city to a halt (Wang herself
moved closer to the office to avoid near-gridlocked
commutes).
So how
is the life of an examiner different from that of a lawyer in
private practice or in-house? Well we suspect that few attorney
firms have morning gymnastics sessions in the office (as they
do in SIPO), or flash messages on their employees’
computer screens reminding them to take a break (as they do at
the
EPO). (If we’re wrong, do let us know.)
Although examiners have been keen to tell us that each day
in the office is different, their work is likely to lack some
of the variety of those filing applications: unlike patent
attorneys there are no clients to schmooze or site visits to go
on to aid understanding of the applicant’s
business. The need to meet personal examination targets aside,
there are few commercial pressures to get in the way of the
twin intellectual pursuits of the science and the law.
But we did learn about the growing willingness of examiners
to pick up the phone to applicants and their advisers to
resolve minor issues and clarify areas of uncertainty. That can
only be a good thing. As long as communication is properly
documented and there is no bypassing of proper procedures then
more face-to-face (or at least phone-to-ear) contact between
examiners and IP owners can only be a good thing. Examiners
have to retain a healthy scepticism about IP applications
– after all, the IP system needs to work in the
interest of lots of stakeholders, not just rights owners. But
better communication between examiners and patent filers keeps
the process moving, backlogs down and encourages a healthy
respect between both sides of the patenting divide. And it
gives examiners something else to do when they’re
not looking for prior art or doing star jumps.
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