Not just "incentivized to ignore quality", they aren't duty-bound to consider quality at all. The PTO evaluates applications for novelty, not quality.
The three main relevant parts of the US Code are:
35 USC Sec. 101: is it patentable? (i.e., it must be a process, machine, process, or manufactured good. It can't be something like an idea or song)
35 USC Sec. 102: is it novel? (i.e., no one single prior existing item teaches all the limitations of the patent claims)
35 USC Sec. 103: is it non-obvious? (i.e., you can't combine a couple of different patents to arrive at your patent)
There's a few other important sections (like 112 that ensures you're giving enough detail), but none of them look at "quality". In other words, you can patent a worthless invention as long as it passes those wickets.
Edit: Somewhat surprisingly to some, they don't necessarily evaluate infringement either. So you could, in theory, have a novel patent that you can't use to make something because it infringes on an existing patent.
As it should be.
The USPTO is in no place to evaluate a patent's quality, unless youre a USPTO clerk whos first name starts with Albert and your last name ends in -Stein.
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But in seriousness, novelty is the important factor in a patent, not quality. As utility patents/improvement patents are a thing.
The clerks are expected to do a certain amount of work per week and granting a patent counts as more work than denying a patent.
So; clerk are incentivized to grant a patent as it takes less effort and yields more production units. If a patent is of poor quality and later is invalidated in a lawsuit; the clerk will not lose production units. Therefore; the clerk is incentivized to grant patents as they count as more production units and not penalized for granting a patent they shouldn't've.
https://www.uspto.gov/sites/default/files/Examination%20Time...
In fact, the most production units that can be obtained by a patent examiner for any particular patent is to issue a final rejection, get the patentee to ask for re-examination, reject again, and then have the patentee abandon the patent.
Edit: so at some point in the patent portfolio cross-licensing negotiation, there's a pure numbers game, so for large corporations there is some value in patents nobody is ever going to implement.
At least that's my recollection from 15 years ago about why Google paid me as sole inventor of a patent. (I was working on indexing, and thought "Oh no, if someone does X, then indexing becomes incredibly harder, basically DRM for the web. Webspam could hide more easily. Oh, but if we patent X, that might make my life easier in the future." The patent lawyer zeroed in too much on my mention of CAPTCHA as a possible use case, so I'm not sure if Google could really use my patent to prevent its use as DRM/Webspam hiding. At some point, I decided pushing back against the lawyer to make the patent more broadly applicable might not be good for society. I didn't feel strongly enough to turn down my patent bonus, just strongly enough to stop pushing edits back to the lawyer.)
The patent lawyer is just there to file the patent and help their client get past the approval process.
It is the PATENT OFFICE who's job it is to judge quality.
Have several patents, btw.
Hasn't it always been the case? There's a ton of old patents for shit which can't work as described.
When at lockheed we had what I referred to as the "Croatian Coalition" a bunch of Croatian engineers that were all over all the patents we were filing (RFID for weapons) -- they were all so proud of all their patents (as they should be) - but they were really aggressive on filing for not just the satisfaction (getting a patent must be a great feeling, I am not yet personally on any even though I have influenced several)
But they like the bonuses and internal recognition that came with them.
Also, spamming the patent office would be hard unless you have deep pockets/are a patent attorney or have Big Corp funding your efforts (and rewarding them)
I am sure there are cheap ways to file, but for the average person, not so much.
"Having N patents" should be something that gets frowned on, not something you highlight on your resume. When asked about this myself (during interviews or whatever), I proudly boast that I have zero patents to my name and that I actively avoid being part of the problem by participating. I see it as an opportunity to 1. help steer our culture in whatever tiny way I can and 2. get up on a little soap box about the problem.
In the past, I've been asked to help out with patent applications for these so-called "inventions" that I developed, and I always tell my manager "If you want to patent this, I can't stop you, but do not put my name on it or associate it with me in any way."
If you invented it, then they have to put your name on the application as the inventor. There’s also a declaration that the inventor is supposed to sign as part of the application. If the inventor is dead or otherwise unavailable (e.g., refuses to sign), there’s an alternative form that can be filed.
The inventive step is the actual decision of 'we will do this thing in this way', or rather determining the 'method'. In fact, the guidelines we follow are that someone implementing the design based on some instructions, i.e, just working on a ticket, is explicitly not to be included as an inventor - unless they actually decided that's how it should be done.
Of course, it's nice to work in a place whereby you get to design and implement the system and become an inventor. In my opinion and experience at least. But I can see some organisations whereby developers are popping off tickets in sprints and implementing them - but that is by definition not an inventive step.
1. Large companies pay a bonus for every patent applied and bigger one for approval.
2. Patent lawyers are paid for filed patents.
3. Patent office makes money on each patent. They view the review process as a cost center and optimize it for fast approval.