Software Writers Patently Enraged

[Peter Fairbrother]

Markus Kuhn wrote:

> After reading
> 
> http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,51689,00.html
> 
> I wonder, why US companies who suffer substantial legal claims from
> defending themselves against ridiculous patent claims don't try to sue
> the US Patent Office for damages?
> 
> Has this been tried?
> 
> It sounds to me, like going to court against the Patent Office and suing
> them for unfairly disrupting business by issuing such patents might have
> far better long-term effects than wasting money on defending against
> just yet another single patent. It might even help to correct the
> incentives of and pressures on patent examiners, who currently face far
> more trouble when they want to reject a patent, but can't find quickly a
> prior-art literature reference that documents that an ideas is clearly
> fairly obvious. You just have to find a good lawyer who is willing to
> slaughter the very cow (i.e., Patent Office) that is otherwise his or
> her best source of milk.
> 
> Markus

I asked this on sci.crypt(?) recently, and was told that you can't sue the
USPO, even for failure to perform their legal duty, and that that is the
law, full stop. IANAAL though, and I don't know if the respondents were
either.

(I am not an american lawyer)

-- Peter Fairbrother