Hi Phil. I work as a paralegal in constitutional/administrative law for the Attorney General of British Columbia in Canada. While our laws are going to be substantially different from what goes on in the States, up here the PTO board would be an administrative tribunal whose decisions are subject to judicial review by the courts.
Here, administrative tribunals must adhere to certain principles of natural justice (ie. administrative fairness) and one of the enumerated grounds for such fairness is for an administrative body to give adequate reasons for its decisions. On Canadian principles, your PTO sounds like it will have violated that, and probably other grounds of administrative fairness. Such decisions can be reviewed by the courts (which apply more rigorous standards of appeal etc than admin tribunals). But that's applying our law. Sounds like legal advice is in order. There ought to be a whole slough of lawyers in patent/copyright law eager to litigate, and will probably provide an initial consultation for free. Hugh Trenchard ----- Original Message ----- From: "Phil Henshaw" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'" <[email protected]> Sent: Thursday, March 06, 2008 3:46 PM Subject: [FRIAM] patent puzzle Might there be anyone who knows what to do with a PTO appeals board decision to not say why they're reversing a previous appeals board decision, and saying they wouldn't believe the claim even if they saw the clear evidence of it? Phil Henshaw ¸¸¸¸.·´ ¯ `·.¸¸¸¸ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 680 Ft. Washington Ave NY NY 10040 tel: 212-795-4844 e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] explorations: www.synapse9.com -- "it's not finding what people say interesting, but finding what's interesting in what they say" -- ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
