[geko29]

Yeah, it's a disaster.  Two of the benchmarks for whether an idea is patentable is whether it's obvious or not, and whether there is prior art (ie "has someone done this already?")  Both are COMPLETELY ignored by the patent office.  As an added bonus, they fired all their technical staff a couple of years ago, so now the people reviewing electronic technologies are sociologists or historians or some crap.  Here's a couple other good examples:

Apple was recently (late last year, IIRC) awarded a patent for any touch input device which can be operated by more than one finger.  Fails both tests.  It's COMPLETELY obvious;  so obvious, in fact, that someone else developed it in 1982.

Amazon a few years ago was able to patent the idea behind one-click.  Not trademark the name, mind you.  It's actually illegal for any other vendor to store your ordering preferences and let you buy merchandise with a single button.  This is why EVERY other site, no matter how big, has a shopping cart that you MUST use.

 

[geko29]

Each patent examiner is extremely knowledgeable in the area of technology of which they are examining patent applications and they follow the letter of the law.

I've never disagreed with a statement more in my entire life.

It takes 4-6 years to train a patent examiner on the process. 70% leave in less than 5 years, therefore nearly all the examiners at any given time are unsuited for the job. In fact, the patent office does such a poor job of retaining top talent that they pay well above government pay scales and STILL lose 1/3 of their employees in the first year.

All examiners are required to process a quota of patents per week, a number that has not been changed in 30+ years, as applications have expanded from single page or even single paragraph submissions such as "a device that moves blades back and forth to trim whisker hair" to massive, complex software applications involving hundreds of thousands of functions. This leads to unpaid overtime, working on vacation, and just plain rushing through things with not a care as to whether the process is done correctly, only that it is done, period.

Two thirds of examiners (62%, to be exact) think there's no possible way they can correctly process a submission, on average, in the time allotted. a full half think the process isn't right even if they did have time to do it according to the book.

All these numbers are from the GAO, and can be looked up to your heart's content.