Evil, more the 2nd type of book. A "straight dope" if you will. The way things really work.
It's this type of angle that bothers me. I feel like it could get me in hot water and my full-time job could be in jeopardy. This is obviously undesirable, just to make a little cash and sell some e-books.
I completely agree that "disturbingly disjointed" is how the PTO operates. I've seen a fair number of absolutely horrible rejections, horrible art and/or horrible obviousness rationale. The PTO is like any other company/agency, where you will have competent people and incompetent people (Some agencies like the DMV are 95% incompetent, most law firms are 95% competent, and I'm not sure where the PTO lands, but hopefully more on the competent side 
. I'm not sure if "disjointed" is fixable however, since the job is almost 100% autonomous. Even the same examiner with a different boss might see a significant change in rejections/allowances, art, etc.
Even though its disjointed, I think me going through my standard process of examination, including key things that frustrate my search (see: help you get a patent) probably apply to other examiners who have made it to the primary level.
My real question was repercussions. Can I write about the PTO (we don't even have security clearances)? How do pseudonyms work e.g. can you file for a copyright under a pseudonym? Is it humanly possible this type of book jeopardizes my job? Obviously, absolutely no names or inventions would be disclosed, just all general "helpful" information for getting a patent. Like I said above though, because I'm aiming for the real deal, how things really get done, what goes through an examiners mind, etc. I could see it angering management.
You are asking the wrong group of people. The only opinion that matters is the opinion of the members of USPTO's office of enrollment and discipline and possibly the contracting office/OIG of the department of commerce. Give them a call, explain what you want to do, and see if/how you can clear it. Its better to ask the right people and be told no then it is to ask the wrong people, rely on their answer, and get hammered for it later.
As a former examiner turned patent attorney, I think that my personal knowledge of what goes on behind closed doors at the PTO gives me a leg up with what I do (mostly prosecution). So a book on that topic would likely be considered welcome by many attorneys who do not have prior examination experience.
One thing you would obviously want to shy away from is providing legal advice in the book (assuming you are not a lawyer). In most instances, a patent prosecution attorney takes a particular action and/or crafts his arguments in a particular way to manage the legal repercussions that may result from that action in a particular way. I'm not talking about repercussions that will affect whether or not a patent is obtained. I'm talking about repercussions that may affect the scope of the patent (e.g., prosecution history estoppel, loss of DOE, etc), whether the obtained patent will actually be valid/enforceable, etc. Thus, the "best" method of obtaining a patent is not necessarily the one that gets a patent application issued by the USPTO in the quickest, most cost efficient manner.
As you only have examination experience, you may be able to provide insight as to how a patent application is "actually" treated in the USPTO, and how a practitioner might address issues arising from that treatment. But you would likely not be able to explain how those practition actions may affect the scope/enforceability of the resulting patent.
Also, long before patent law was of interest to me I worked for the DoD as a contract operations representative. From that experience I can tell you with absolute certainty that the department of commerce will be concerned about the possibility that you (as a government employee) may make representations in the book that may be construed as representations of the USPTO/DoC as a whole. The government is extremely nitpicky about who can make representations on its behalf, to the point where government employees who do not have agency authority (i.e., who are not an authorized agent of the government) may be held
personally accountable for any costs incurred from any unauthorized representations they might make on the governments behalf. So, tread carefully.
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Topic: Writing a patent drafting book (Read 1630 times)
