Patent Attorney Mad As Hell and Not Going To Take It (From the USPTO) Anymore
There's something beautiful about watching someone have a full meltdown.
There’s something beautiful about watching someone have a full meltdown. There’s a primal insanity that spews forth during a complaint-filled rant. It’s what makes movies like Network and Falling Down such enjoyable romps.
Attorneys aren’t immune to meltdowns, but they usually reserve them for a legal secretary, hapless associate, or beleaguered co-counsel. Anything to keep the episode shielded from the prying eyes of ATL.
Which makes a patent attorney’s public freakout on the USPTO itself so much more entertaining.
AI Presents Both Opportunities And Risks For Lawyers. Are You Prepared?
Prepare a Bingo card for the over-the-top references you expect to see in these rants (yep, plural). Here’s a freebie for the center square: mocking the Special Olympics…
Los Angeles-based patent attorney Andrew Schroeder (check out the creepy dude holding the lightbulb-shaped brain on that site — yikes!) decided it was time to stand up to the USPTO rejecting his claims. Last week, Schroeder filed a letter to Examiner Alexander Valvis.
Are you drunk? No, seriously…are you drinking scotch and whiskey with a side of crack cocaine while you “examine” patent applications? (Heavy emphasis on the quotes.) Do you just mail merge rejection letters from your home? Is that what taxpayers are getting in exchange for your services? Have you even read the patent application? I’m curious. Because you either haven’t read the patent application or are… (I don’t want to say the “R” word) “Special.”
Numerous examples abound in terms of this particular Examiner not following the law. Clearly, the combination of references would render the final product to be inoperable for its intended use. However, for this Special Needs Examiner, logic just doesn’t cut it. It is manifestly clear that this Examiner has a huge financial incentive to reject patent applications so he gets a nice Christmas bonus at the end of the year. When in doubt, reject right?
Sponsored
AI Presents Both Opportunities And Risks For Lawyers. Are You Prepared?
How The New Lexis+ AI App Empowers Lawyers On The Go
Happy Lawyers, Better Results The Key To Thriving In Tough Times
How The New Lexis+ AI App Empowers Lawyers On The Go
I don’t think Schroeder understands that holding back on the “R” word doesn’t really count when you go ahead and call someone dumb by labeling them a “Special Needs Examiner.” It’s like saying, “I’m not going to use the ‘B’ word, but it seems like she’s on the rag.” It just doesn’t work.
By the way, some will criticize the conflation of “scotch and whiskey,” but as one of the commenters at PatentlyO helpfully pointed out, “whiskey” with an “e” denotes non-Scotch “whisky,” so it’s not a mistake on Schroeder’s part.
So for the scoreboard we have accusations of drug and alcohol abuse, financial corruption, and mocking special needs. But we’re not done:
Since when did the USPTO become a post World War II jobs program? What’s the point of hiring 2,000 additional examiners when 2,000 rubber stamps would suffice just fine? So, tell me something Corky… what would it take for a patent application to be approved? Do we have to write patent applications in crayon? Does a patent application have to come with some sort of pop-up book? Do you have to be a family member or some big law firm who incentivizes you with some other special deal? What does it take Corky?
Perhaps you might want to take your job seriously and actually give a sh.t! What’s the point in having to deal with you Special Olympics rejects when we should just go straight to Appeals? While you idiots sit around in bathtubs farting and picking your noses, you should know that there are people out here who actually give a sh.t about their careers, their work, and their dreams.
Your job is not a joke, but you are turning it into a regular three ring circus. If you can’t motivate yourself to take your job seriously, then you need to quit and let someone else take over what that actually wants to do the job right.
Government workers are all lazy, the introduction, via Corky, of Down Syndrome to the mix, and the odd decision to edit his vulgarity as though THAT would be taking it too far (note: this is how the letter is presented in PatentlyO — we’re assuming they weren’t the ones to introduce the “sh.t” spelling) (UPDATE: We’ve seen the original and the attorney really did this).
Sponsored
Curbing Client And Talent Loss With Productivity Tech
Law Firm Business Development Is More Than Relationship Building
This went down over U.S. Patent Application No. 13/068530, an application for a water sprinkler tripod. Nothing can spark passion like a water sprinkler tripod. PatentlyO reports that the PTO has now removed the letter from the file history.
Thankfully, a second rant, related to Application No. 13/134890 and filed the same day, is preserved for posterity.
Apparently, the current Examiner to which this application has been assigned, does not speak the native language here in the United States of America. Perhaps in Farsi, really ancient Latin, or even the post-Nimoy Vulcan dialect, the word “stud” just so happens to be synonymous with the term “ridge”. But here in this country, the same country to which Examiner receives his stipend, the word “stud”, and the word “ridge” have two separate and distinct meanings.
We have a thinly-veiled derogatory attack on Iranians joining the wild-eyed party. Also, is there a difference with post-Nimoy Vulcan? I’m not a xeno-linguist of fake species.
One might even go so far to say that perhaps athletes who participate in the Special Olympics might initially make the same mistake after a wild night of cocaine and strippers in Las Vegas. However, even after all that debauchery, and after the lingering side effects of their hangovers subside, a Special Olympics athlete of ordinary skill with the MPEP would surely be able to locate the correct dictionary and discover that in fact the term “stud”, and the term “ridge” are not synonymous after all. Moreover, every single English-speaking person (even those in a coma) would be able to divine that there is no “machine” to which the protuberance is affixed.
“A Special Olympics athlete of ordinary skill with the MPEP” and “[m]oreover, every single English-speaking person (even those in a coma).” Both priceless.
Finally, to conclude this epic rant, Schroeder informs us:
Well, you should know that there is another free dictionary online called www.USPTOexaminerswhoaremorons.com. In it, sure enough, a picture and name of the current examiner was found. Not Surprisingly, enumerated synonyms include the following: “Down’s Syndrome, idiot, lazy, incompetent, blind, stupid, worthless.”
Spoiler: www.USPTOexaminerswhoaremorons.com doesn’t exist yet, so head on over to Go Daddy and lock that domain down.
View the full response to Application No. 13/134890 (UPDATE: AND the Response to Application No. 13/068530) on the next page…
