The U.S. Government Has a Secret System for Stalling Patents
So, the USPTO flags questionable patent applications, particularly those relating to '"broad" or "pioneering scope," "seemingly frivolous or silly subject matter," or those "dealing with inventions, which, if issued, would potentially generate unwanted media coverage (i.e., news, blogs, forums)."', as well as patents related to specific 'areas of technology' such as 'smartphones' 'Internet-enabled systems,' and 'processes and apparatuses involving Education.'.  And those patents get scrutiny from a larger panel rather than getting rubber-stamped.<p>And a law firm whose job is to get things patented thinks this is a Constitutional issue, because all applications don't get that level of scrutiny.<p>Sure, it'd be nice if <i>all</i> patent applications got the same level of scrutiny, but in the absence of that, triage makes sense: "hey, this one looks hairy, we're going to need to look at it more closely".<p>The only thing I'm mildly disappointed by is that one of the categories is effectively "stuff that will make the news"; granted, those are likely to be patents that shouldn't be issued in the first place, but focusing on the PR aspect rather than the sanity-checking aspect seems wrong.