Real-Life Decision Making
You are a patent examiner. You enjoy researching the applications, especially seeing the latest technology years before it's on the streets.
Occasionally, you must turn down a patent application that is really neat. You have to turn down an application if you find someone else who thought of it first and was given a patent.
Often, people in the same field apply for a number of very similar patents. It is a race of sorts by competitors to get a patent approved for their "version" of the device or process. Once a patent is approved, competitors must pay the patent holder a fee for producing their version of it.
You must approve or reject an application based on its own merits. How big a company is or how much money it has does not affect the process.
But sometimes, patent applications can be nearly identical. Sometimes, too, the wording of an application can make the examiner's job a challenge because this description makes it close to another application or leaves the door wide open for argument.
Granting a patent to one company will bring a flood of appeals from the others. This can turn the process ugly and take years to resolve. It can cost the patent office a great deal of time and money to work on this.
You are looking at two applications on your desk right now. They are both for the same thing. Only one can be approved.
Here is a little background on the people behind each application:
Application A -- A multinational company with numerous patents already in the same field. They have a lot of experience filing patents -- you have personally approved several of them before. With their application, they've provided a lot of glossy fact sheets that explain where the idea for the new invention came from.
Application B -- An individual who claims to be the one who came up with the idea. This is his first application. He provides some documentation, but he does not specifically refute the claims made by Applicant A.
You have many other applications stacking up on your desk. You would like to get this matter over with as quickly as possible. If you stop to do more research, you could fall behind in the rest of your work.
What do you do?