000216	08-uspto-changes_wmp_a_16.wma
000000	ERIK SCHMIDT: So one of the things that you're looking for in the Patent Busting Project is prior art.
000006	Do you see any of the changes that the Patent Office is contemplating or that they're actually implementing?
000013	Do you see those changes affecting this and making it easier for you to fork bad patents?
000020	JASON SCHULTZ:  I hope so one thing I always feel in the patent reform debates is that the Patent Office is often the scapegoat for the problem.
000030	It is true that the Patent Office has an impossible job to process all the patents quickly and efficiently and intelligently that they get, the applications.
000042	And quite honestly, in many ways the problems with patent quality at the Patent Office are always going to be there.
000050	We can throw more money at the problem I don't know that's ever going to solve it.
000054	They are trying to do if you think though to make patent quality better and I think those will actually help.
000100	They are trying to open up the process more to the public.
000104	There are several critical experiments that they're looking at where people can submit potential prior art to them as the public.
000113	That people can help with oppositions potentially of patents before they actually issue.
000125	And I think those steps are very helpful.
000128	The problem is not to see those as the only solution because, quite honestly, with so much money at stake
000137	so Microsoft, the subject of a $1.5 billion judgment the other day on some MP3 patents.
000145	With that much money at stake the companies that want to game and exploit the system will outspend the public and outspend everybody in the Patent Office and everything.
000156	I mean it's just completely rational economically for them, when they see such a big pile of gold at the end of the rainbow, to do that.
000208	And so therefore, it's going to be very difficult for these efforts to completely combat those incentives, but they will help.