Several commentators (including some at the PTO as reported by Greg Aharonian) have referred to and cautioned against patent reform "by anecdote." This is always a worthwhile caution in public policy. A few isolated tales of woe are not sufficient to show there is a real problem. An anecdote may reveal a real problem, but result in one's overlooking the systemic cause. An anecdote may reveal a real problem, but the solution that seems to arise from that instance may cause more problems than it solves.

The trouble is, the alternative to anecdotes is statistics. And those, too, can be slippery.

One can measure the rates at which litigation is increasing or decreasing, but it is hard to gauge numerically whether these cases are strong or weak, frivolous or just. Data on settlements is even more meager. And one can easily measure patent pendency, attrition at the PTO, budgets, and so on. But how does one measure patent quality?

Arguments from broad experience *are* different from isolated anecdotal evidence. But with experience in the business and science of patents comes from involvement, and with involvement comes self-interest, enlightened and otherwise.

So we recall the fable of the blind men and the elephant. We'll just have to do the best we can. I do wish that empirical economics was not such a dying art.

posted by Solveig Singleton @ 1:02 PM | Patents

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