How is success measured here with respect to finding prior art?

Question

If a patent does not end up issuing is that a success, or is it if a patent is narrowed? I just stumbled upon this answer (Scaling based on pixel density (Microsoft) - Patent Application - PRIOR ART REQUEST) which states prominently "Rejected" at the top of the post. Additionally, I saw this blog post from Joel Spolsky claiming "victory" with regard to the answered request for prior art.

So, my question is, the goal is to narrow "broad" patent applications before issuance, or the goal is to prevent broad applications from issuing, or both?

Answer 1

When that "rejected" was first posted I edited the text to add that an initial rejection is normal and am happy to say that the wording seems to have been picked up in the template for the rejected stamp cases.

Joel may or may not have known he was exaggerating when he says he "killed" the patent application but at least, in that case, the non-patent literature he located was cited by the examiner. In most other "victories" here that is not the case; instead the non-final rejections cite US patent documents not mentioned in an AP answer.

I probably have a different view of the average quality of issued software patents than most participants at Ask Patents. My goals are to help people see that the patent system is more complicated than they might think and not as screwed up as they may think. Improving the system by claims being narrowed to what is deserved, if anything, is also important.