Monday, August 28, 2006

Commissioner of Patents Reportedly Bars Reliance on Wikipedia by Patent Examiners

In an August 25th posting, the Wall Street Journal Law Blog reports (here) that the USPTO has instructed its Examiners not to rely on Wikipedia as an accepted source of information. Commissioner of Patents John Doll is quoted as saying, "The problem with Wikipedia is that it's constantly changing."

Commissioner for Trademarks Lynne G. Beresford recently refused to ban reliance on Wikipedia and other collaborative websites by Trademark Examining Attorneys. (see TTABlog posting here).

TTABlog comment: I think Mr. Doll got this one right.

Text Copyright John L. Welch 2006.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home