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Where's the beef, Mike?

By Lawrence B. Ebert, Esq.

Mike has posted four comments in about two days, but not one of them offers any evidence to back up the remark he made on TechDirt: With the USPTO approving tons of bad patents ... Mike writes It's funny (laughably funny) that you assume that a lack of studies showing something means that bad patents aren't getting through. illustrating the obvious, that Mike never mastered "Logic 101." One can't prove a negative. If Mike makes an assertion, Mike has to present evidence "for" his assertion. So far, in the last two days, Mike is 0 for 4. Mike, if you can't think at a college level, at least read what Abraham Lincoln said in the Lincoln-Douglas debates about proving a negative.

In his remark to JD, Mike is still sticking by Jaffe and Lerner:

I merely used L&J's book to point out that they correctly spotted that there has been a huge increase in questionable patent applications, in part due to some changes to the way the patent system has operated.

Yet, Mike has no evidence that Jaffe and Lerner are correct. Mike does not want to talk about the screw-up of Jaffe and Lerner on page 144 of Innovation and Its Discontents, which proves Jaffe and Lerner don't understand the concept of prior art, and therefore are unable to know what a "questionable patent application" is.

IPBiz notes how appropriate it is that the most thorough example of an (alleged) missed piece of prior art by the USPTO in the whole Jaffe and Lerner book was copied by Jaffe and Lerner from Greg Aharorian. Jaffe and Lerner could not even think up an example on their own. And, similarly, Mike can't produce any evidence on his own to support his conclusory statement about the USPTO approving tons of bad patents. Copyists citing copyists citing copyists, with no original thought in view. Mike should take up residence in Patna; at least he might get some basmati rice to eat.

***
Jaffe and Lerner alleged on page 144 that the USPTO did not consider prior art in granting U.S. Patent No. 6,049,811 which is directed to a "Machine for Drafting a Patent Application and Process for Doing So." Jaffe and Lerner alleged that the disclosure in the '811 patent was anticipated by a paper by workers from Hitachi published in 74 JPTOS 315.

J. Steven Rutt had written in NANOTECH AND THE PATENT SYSTEM: A REVIEW OF INNOVATION AND ITS DISCONTENTS, 2 Nanotechnology L. & Bus. 111, 113 (2005), a book review of "Innovation and Its Discontents" available in both LEXIS and Westlaw which appeared before the review of Professor Dreyfuss:

The Innovation authors, however, utterly fail to discuss the seminal point of whether the Hitachi prior art teaches this required feature of the invention.

***
See
Dudas unbundled, by Mike [?]

http://www.ipfrontline.com/depts/article.asp?id=15505&deptid=4

Full post as published by IPBiz on April 22, 2008 (boomark / email).