The June 2005 Corporate Legal Times includes an interesting roundtable discussion on patent reform. The participants were all in-house patent counsel. In the discussion, Richard Rodrick of S.C. Johnson raised an issue that has not been touched by any of the proposed patent reforms.
You can write a patent application today that is almost indecipherable, and you’ve got a good chance of getting it out of the patent office with a patent.
Anyone who regularly reads patent documents knows that Rodrick is right on the money. Should the Patent Office be issuing more rejections based on a lack of clarity in the specification based on the requirements of Section 112?
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35 U.S.C. §112. Specification: The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
