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(2) Make every patent examiner personally liable for approving a patent, to the extent of a lien on their personal assets. No bankruptcy allowed (as for student loans).

This is never going to happen and would be an abusive illegal employment practice if it did.



You could make the agents self-employed on a bounty basis rather like the old Lloyd's Names

http://moneyweek.com/how-to-become-a-lloyds-name-42723/

However, the inevitable Black Swann event caused changes even in that very high risk system...

"Historically, Names had unlimited liability to the risks they were underwriting. In the late 1980s/early 1990s, Lloyd’s entered the most traumatic time in its history. Unexpectedly large legal awards in US courts on asbestos, pollution and health hazard policies (APH) served up huge losses to many Names, a large number of whom lost their shirts. Names’ numbers dropped from over 30,000 to below 10,000."

I think just giving patent examiners enough time and resources to actually verify the claims would probably cut down a lot of the problem. That and a specialised court like

http://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/rcj-rolls-building/patents-...

instead of a general purpose district court sitting with a lay jury


Make every patent applicant (and patent agent/counsel) liable for filing patent claims that are found invalid whether issues or not.




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