To,
1. Datuk Khairy Jamaluddin, Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation
2. Any other concerned people
Subj: Finance only Projects that have granted WIPO-class Inventions
To all those who are concerned about the progress of Malaysia in these troubling times, it should be obvious that we need to save money on research and development expenditures that are 3 times less effective than Finland.
Intellectual Property is Wealth
If we continue our ways, we will get reduced innovation and therefore reduced wealth, because Intellectual Property is wealth, recognized by all the accounting bodies of the world. What we are mostly concerned is the wealth generated by innovations, not the subjective improvements such as increase in knowledge that may lead to real wealth for others. We need the wealth for ourselves, not for other richer people like those in Finland.
MYIPO does not want to grant patents to locals
How do we get the Intellectual Property? It is by getting our patents granted, not just by filing them. Unfortunately, MYIPO does not want to grant patents with moronic excuses.
There are only three levels of intellectual measurement. Clever, Stupid or Moronic. A moron is so stupid that he cannot distinguish between 2 and 1. Soft and hard. This is what has happened to MYIPO patent examiners, no doubt influenced by other patent examiners in some nations that are so corrupted. I am the evidence of this. I have even reported to the Auditor General but unfortunately the auditor sees nothing wrong with these sorts of moronic judgements and the time taken to make decisions.
MYIPO took 5 years to find that my invention with only one shaft is similar to other inventions that have two shafts. Incidentally, these inventions were discovered by me in the patent filings because they are the closest to my inventions. If it took them 5 years to discover these moronic excuses it will take them another 5 years at least to find other excuses.
A patent only lasts for 20 years. It only has value for 20 years, so after 20 years, it will become useless. My invention is called Optimum Hybrid Vehicles. It allows all types of vehicles to be converted to an electrical hybrid car that is optimum. It is optimum because it gets all the savings of electric vehicles possible while using the least cost. Imagine the reduction in global warming if we can convert all vehicles into electrical hybrid vehicles? My invention will have no value once no more fuel burning vehicles are used, which can happen in the next 10 years.
If you read the comments in the article referred to, the reason why only 15% patents granted are local, is that MYIPO does not want to grant patents to locals. I bet, some of the locals also have patents granted overseas. I have a patent called Zero Energy Transportation System that is already granted by UKIPO but abandoned by MYIPO, the only patent that I filed that had been granted. I had filed 6 patents, none had been proven to be invalid, with many deemed as abandoned. This is the typical moronic excuses by patent examiners and offices that inventors want to abandon their patent filing process.
WIPO filing has better success rate
The reason why that Zero Energy Transportation System patent is granted is because it was filed in WIPO, the only patent that I filed using WIPO. I thought I can save money by just filing nationally separately but it turned out to be a bad judgement.
Why a WIPO filing has a much better success rate than national patent filings? Because you can get the advantage of a second opinion from patent examiners from other nations, especially those from competing interests. I filed in WIPO using Japanese Patent Office as the preliminary search agent. My JPO patent examiner is the most professional among all patent examiners that I have come across. Japan is known as the least corrupt nation on earth and this shows. All the moronic reasonings of patent examiners are caused by corruption.
Tax money to be spent on WIPO filings only
I suggest that all research fund must be towards generating granted patents, not just filing patents that take forever to be granted. Because WIPO has a better chance of success in granting patents, the tax money is best spent by filing in WIPO only, and at least 3 other large nations, that will make the WIPO filing justifiable. I suggest US, UK and Malaysia, at least. Certainly not Australia or even Finland.
The excuse given by MYIPO in not granting locals the patents, is that they do not have enough patent examiners. If they are not enough, why should we file even more patents to them? Ridiculous isn’t it. But this is what we are doing now. We asked our researchers to file in Malaysia only so that these IP do not have enough value. To be valuable, it needs to be useable in as many countries as possible.
I need to spend a total of RM5,000 for each filing. Filing through agents will cost RM10,000 at least, but there are cost saving measures that we can take but these measures will have impacts in other areas also. Asking researchers to do their own filing will reduce their time doing the research. I filed myself but my research output should therefore be less as a result of spending time preparing and defending my patents. However, some of the work are actually similar to the work done by researchers such as literature review and publications. We just need to change formats.
Patent filing costs must be paid by funding bodies
The biggest problem faced by universities in Malaysia is that patent filing is not supported by the funding bodies, but the patent outputs are to be shared. This is unfair. If we go to court, the patent rights distribution can be disputed. If a person is not concerned enough to give money to file and support the patents until they are approved, why should they be entitled to the patents anyway?
It is like asking a person to open a screw but does not provide a screw driver. You may ask the person to provide his own screw driver but that costs incurred by the person, means that the effort in producing the work results in some of the output belonging to him also. Just because many people willingly give their properties to their employers does not mean that it is right, because it is not sustainable. It is like asking workers to pay for themselves for the benefits of employers.
Declining revenue means declining research grant amount. A lot of the research amount is spent on post graduate students in order to produce as many post graduates as possible.
Supporting students that can produce world class inventions only
Reducing the amount of money for students and diverting them to filing patents will look like a reduction in the quantity of graduates but the reduction in the number of graduates will be compensated by the greater value of these graduates. They are able to produce world class inventions. Why should we support graduates that are not able to produce world class inventions at this time of troubled economy?
No more prototypes, only custom production
Another strange phenomenon in the academic world is the large number of prototypes that they produce. These prototypes do not do any useful work, even for a short while which results in them not giving any value at all. This is the result of requiring perfection in order to make any decision.
In my work as a project manager, we do not call our outputs prototypes. We call them custom production. Each of the product is different from the others because we need to make changes to them to suit the environments required by customers. There are always errors or imperfections, called variation orders. Usually, the allowed VO is just 10% but it can exceed that figure in order to finish the project.
There is no need to produce a prototype first. The least we do, we call it a pilot project because it is the first time that special design is produced, but that project must serve customers, despite it being the first one. We just need to rely on our knowledge and calculations to ensure that they are safe and function properly. That is the job of professional engineers.
You do not expect engineers to produce a protype of a KL Twin Towers in order to finally produce a safe Twin Towers do you? It will be much safer and certain, but what a waste. Why don’t we just build the KL Twin Towers based on our knowledge and expertise of past experiences, using proven methods and materials? We may need to produce a scale model of the Twin Towers to prove certain concepts and the costs is part of the development costs, but the accuracy of any scale model is not so high, so many have been replaced by simulations. Simulations also do not have 100% accuracy, but we need to decide and take some risks. Do not make perfection be the enemy of correctness. This is the comment made by one expert in the wake of the WHO disastrous handling of the COVID19.
How can researchers do custom production?
First, identify your customer or user. The customer does not need to pay any money because the research fund should cover it. But the research fund can be rephrased as a custom production of a device or system. The funder is the best customer. If it is the federal government, the output of the custom design project is to be used by the federal government. It can be treated just like any purchase of items for the federal government.
Sufficient fund must therefore be provided until the product is useable to the customer. The very common problem with Malaysian projects is that there is insufficient fund and variation orders to allow a project to be completed and fully useable. For example, there is a fund to allow the buying of a car, but not enough to buy tyres for the cars.
Custom production of Transparent SUV
To illustrate the process of a custom production of a research project, let me explain the steps that I shall take to commercialise this invention.
The Transparent SUV will be patented using the Patent Design in USA, and Industrial Design in Malaysia and UK. We can protect the shape of this invention. I am still waiting for UMS on how much they are willing to fund and if not, release their rights. So far, I still have not received their response and this has delayed the production of this vehicle.
Because the production of this vehicle is vital for the environment and therefore of public interest, I shall give UMS reasonable time to respond of not more than 1 month. If they still do not respond, I shall assume that they are not willing to fund this patent filing and therefore release their rights to the design. Actually, it is already more than 1 month. I already informed them in various emails and forms since November 2020, but so far, no reply at all.
Before the design patent is granted, I do not intend to proceed with any development of this design. It is a waste of time and fund to do so. Just wait until it is granted. The secret of the success of this project is the exact shape of this SUV. It allows a very low Coefficient of Aerodynamic Drag, even lower than tear drop designs. The exact shape is covered under the Trade Secret. You cannot patent the exact shape anyway, because it is not a method and the precise shape is functional. Design patent is not allowed for functional objects.
The Sabah Economic Advisory Council is anxious that I build this Transparent SUV. This is where I realised the silliness of calling it a protype project. Although this design is optimised for mass production because of its shape and plastic materials, rather than build a prototype, I shall only build a custom design tailored for a customer first.
How can we? It is even illegal to drive it on public roads. So, just drive in estates and private properties. Instead of the State Government wasting money funding a research project, why not just order one car for its use? It will be a publicity statement and at the same time, serves a function. One member suggested that we use it to transport security officers. Other suggestions, coming from the council and the Sabah Blueprint NGO is for agricultural uses. These ideas do not come from me, but from others.
No such thing as invalid patent
One possible accusation against patents is that they are not valid but a patent is not valid until the highest court in all countries deemed it as invalid. Before these decisions are made, you cannot say that any patent is invalid. Patent Offices and patent examiners do not have the final say on the granting of a patent.
So, all patents can be granted finally if support is given. The cost can be as high as one million RM in each nation.
So, to make it viable, the value of the invention must exceed this amount. The value also increases as it passes more challenges. If it has to go to the highest courts, it’s value will be even higher.
I do not recall any case where the highest courts invalidate a patent. The only relevant decisions are whether a particular process violates a granted patent or not. The reasons why this is not is because the coverage of the patent is not wide enough. If the coverage is not wide enough, it will reduce the value of your patent. Which is why you should defend the coverage of your claims. Patent examiners will dispute mostly these claims but it is important not to submit to them. I doubt agents are capable of determining the scope of an invention. We need the inventors themselves to determine these limits. The more knowledgeable the inventor is, the wider these claims are.
Defending against patent examiners
Please note that a patent cannot be rejected based on scope of claims alone simply because they can always be amended. What cannot be amended are the obvious claims.
Unfortunately, many patent examiners dispute the scope of claims and interpret them so widely that it led to the moronic interpretations that two shafts are the same as one shaft, hard shell is the same as soft shell and cooling system is the same as efficiency system.
The reasons which they quote is that they interpret widely, but I never understand how widely it is because they refused to explain their reasons. Even when I start amending, trying to decipher their intentions, they are still not satisfied.
There are many attempts at invalidating my patents by using illegal methods in the USPTO and even UKIPO by using abandonment because I do not reply on time. The reasons are due to the non-receipt of their communications. Their illogical reasonings were recorded and forwarded to the Patent Appeal processes and were overturned. Even here, the patent examiner ignored the order to reinstate the patent. I had to resort to the Department of Commerce to force USTPO to honour the decision of the Patent Appeal Court.
Later on, I found out that there was a patent awarded to Boeing, that is a blatant copy of my invention, but immediately granted. This is just blatant corruption, so do not exclude the possibilities that patent examiners are corrupt. The invention, Zero Energy Transportation Systems is already granted by UKIPO, by using these incidences in USPTO and JPO. I am sure they helped me in getting the grant. The fact that it is was filed through WIPO helps also.
Another invention, the Zero Aerodynamic Drag Vehicles suffered similar fate. It was rejected and I was not allowed to file any amendments because my claims are still indefinite and non-obvious because it is similar to cooling system patents. Despite my attempts at explaining how moronic these interpretations are, the examiners, based it on his widest claim, which I still could not decipher and therefore amend according to his desires.
This time the PTAB sided with the examiner which unfortunately affirmed the overall rejection of the whole patent despite not find that the invention not obvious. This is illegal because you cannot reject a patent based on indefinite interpretations alone because they can be amended. She quoted the following:
re Steele, 305 F.2d 859, 862-63 (CCPA 1962) (holding that the Board erred in affirming a rejection of indefinite claims under 35 U.S.C. § 103, because the rejection was based on speculative assumptions as to the meaning of the claims).
This implies that we should consider obviousness search by assuming that there are no indefinite claims. If you assume the claims are indefinite, then you cannot claim that the invention is obvious. This is a very old case and not mentioned in any of the MPEP and MPOP of USPTO and UKIPO.
The moment you passed the obviousness claim, we can start amending to satisfy the indefinite cases but defend to the best of your ability, and keep in mind all the records. If later on, someone circumvent your patents because of the more restrictive interpretations forced on you by the examiners, you can claim damages against the patent offices and patent examiners.
Instead of taking USPTO to court, it is better to report all these evidences to the Department of Justice of the USA first. Their investigations should help our case.
Disclaimer:
This article is written as my own idea and proposal as a concerned citizen of Malaysia and has no endorsement from my employer, Universiti Malaysia Sabah.
Written by:
Ir. Hj. Othman bin Hj. Ahmad, PEng ASDK
Faculty of Engineering,
Universiti Malaysia Sabah
4/3/2021
