Intellectual Property Law

Martial Law

Don't check in for a few days and look what happens.

Well, it has become obvious to me that I've got to rein things in a bit.

I started this blog because I thought it might be nice if examiners and attorneys could exchange opinions, and maybe give each other a bit of insight into the jobs of their counterparts. I think that it can help an examiner to know the motivations that dictate how attorneys prosecute patent applications. I assume that it would work both ways.

I didn't envision it as a place for people to trade insults, but it seems like a few have decided to treat it as such. No more.

So, let's set forth some ground rules for the comments. Actually, I can sum it up with exactly one rule:

1. Respect. Try showing a little.

There will always be disagreements among people, and we all know that there are those attorneys who have got problems with examiners in general, and the reciprocal is true as well. Please just keep things civil. Don't get personal. Don't deride someone's ability as an attorney or an examiner. Don't ridicule someone for the choices they've made, either to go to law school or not to go to law school. Don't make remarks about someone's character. Don't generalize about 'all examiners' doing this or 'all attorneys' are like that. We all know that it doesn't work that way. And please, don't ridicule someone because of the law school they attended. [I feel like I'm laying down rules for 2nd graders here.]

Does that work for you?

Well, if not, from this point the new editorial policy is that I'll be liberal in my deletion of comments whenever I think it is warranted. Unfortunately. I had thought that people posting to this site would be adults [an assumption based on the fact that they'd at least have gotten a technical degree, if not a law degree], but that was apparently not the case.

Obviously, I'll try to keep deletions to a minimum, but really people, some of the comments have been way over the line. If you can't keep it civil, please, don't bother commenting.

JPE

Full post as published by Just a Patent Examiner on June 20, 2007 (boomark / email).