From: Don Marti Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2000 13:46:12 -0800 Subject: Customer service bonuses for USPTO Commissioners? This is some disturbing news about patents that I just sent out to a local mailing list, and I thought you people might be interested too. The US Patent and Trademark Office is reorganizing itself as a "Performance-Based Organization" and is planning to pay two important officials according to how well they meet "performance measures and goals" according to Richard Maulsby, a USPTO PR person I talked with today while waiting for a GNU/Linux distribution to install. The measurements used to determine "financial incentives" for Nicholas Godici, Commissioner For Patents, and Anne Chesser, Commissioner For Trademarks, have not yet been decided. I asked Mr. Maulsby if the process for deciding Mr. Godici's bonus will be made public. "I wouldn't expect that. We've had a lot of customer feedback....and I'm sure that will be factored in." But who are the "customers"? When I read in a press release that "A PBO [performance-based organization] is a results-driven organization that delivers the best possible services to its customers." I got curious and decided to ask USPTO who the customers are. Maulsby tells me that they are patent applicants, which includes corporations, government agencies, and individual inventors, and "finally, of course, you have the American people as a whole." I asked Mr. Maulsby what kind of service the commissioners will be graded on, and he speculated "Obviously they'll be tied to the amount of time it takes to get patents and trademarks." Wouldn't such financial incentives motivate commissioners to issue large numbers of bogus patents on demand? "Of course not." "Commissioner for Patents" and "Commissioner for Trademarks" are new positions. Q. Todd Dickinson, Assistant Secretary of Commerce and Commissioner of Patents and Trademarks, is being promoted to Undersecretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Original USPTO release (with contact info): http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/com/speeches/00-21.htm James Gleick on USPTO's new "customer" focus ("Our Patent Mission: To Help Our Customers Get Patents.") http://www.nytimes.com/library/magazine/home/20000312mag-patents.html -- Don Marti http://zgp.org/~dmarti/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: Richard Stallman Date: Sun, 02 Apr 2000 09:58:47 -0600 (MDT) Subject: Re: Customer service bonuses for USPTO Commissioners? For practical purposes, the PTO regards patent applicants as their customers, and takes for granted that "What's good for General Patentholders is good for the USA." None of these proposed reforms will make any great difference to the problem we face; we must regard them as an attempt to sidetrack the pressure for change away from change that would really matter and into side issues. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: Don Marti Date: Sun, 02 Apr 2000 09:14:28 -0700 Subject: Re: Customer service bonuses for USPTO Commissioners? On Sun, Apr 02, 2000 at 09:58:47AM -0600, Richard Stallman wrote: > None of these proposed reforms will make any great difference > to the problem we face; we must regard them as an attempt to > sidetrack the pressure for change away from change that would > really matter and into side issues. Yes, I think the "reforms" simply add financial incentives for USPTO commissioners to issue more software and business methods patents faster. I'm nominating Richard for the Patent Public Advisory Committee, and I encourage everyone else to think of a person who can represent the interests of users and inventors harmed by software and business methods patents and nominate that person. More info at: http://zgp.org/~dmarti/uspto_committee -- Don Marti http://zgp.org/~dmarti/