I have a serious problem with the US patent process.
You submit something and they you wait for THEM to deem it as worthy.
I say the patent process should be a simple form you fill out, that lists your idea and BLAMMO it gets a date-time stamp and you got a patent.
Then it is up to you to defend your patent, if someone uses your idea.
The process of getting a patent now is too costly and time consuming.
And if you want to patent a perpetual motion device then go ahead. It should not be up to the government to decide if your idea is good or not.
Unfortunately, that is the law that the inventor has to live with. And future changes will likely favor corporate inventorship over individual inventors (the Euro-patent process is worse). I don't see things getting any better.
"And if you want to patent a perpetual motion device then go ahead. It should not be up to the government to decide if your idea is good or not.
If you've ever spent time perusing issued patents (I have), you will find that things just as impossible as perpetual motion have been patented. Of common sense there is very little among patent examiners. They very much have a script, and follow it "to the letter".
I've been through the process 26 times, both as a corporate inventor and as an individual. But I've been lucky in that my patent agent is literally a genius at it. His "won/loss" ratio is far higher that typical. In college he majored in chemistry and minored in English, which for a techie is a REALLY strange combo. He has always been interested in law and at one time contemplated going to law school. He took up patent work just before he retired from the chemical corporation we both had worked for, and "found his calling", then retired and kept at it.