Patents are a whole other thing, one needs to have some specific novel feature, etc... You are probably right that patents are checked out reasonably well before issue, in comparison. I do not think they are particularly careful though. 1) there is a realization that IP is a national treasure, economically, and so they tend to issue patents rather than not, let the courts sort them out, rather than let some other country get a head start. 2) I think they see the courts as a better location for sorting out the details; 3) there is a land rush on patents, and they don't have the manpower to cover the huge number of patents being issued. 4) Many people don't seem to have much idea what came before, and are ignorant of stuff from years ago. It isn't much of a historical time, or place.
I would have to disagree with the idea they issue more than not. I don't recall the exact numbers, but I'm CERTAIN they dispose of many many more applications than they allow. Even on appeal, most of the time rejections are upheld and the patent application dies.
I've successfully prosecuted a TM, a utility patent and have several others pending now. Unless you're very lucky, it's about a 6 year ordeal on utility patents. You won't even get your first rejection for the first 2 years or so after filing.
Let me tell you what I've learned about the USPTO.
There are different types of examiners and a variety of philosophies with respect to IP over there. A few (old school) examiners are conscientious , maybe a little idealistic, and are interested in identifying legitimate patentable material to issue in each application.
This is not the norm anymore.
Many examiners openly view IP as an assault on the public domain and see their job as protecting the public from the inventor by denying as much as they can make an argument for rejecting without regard to actual novelty or non-obviousness. It's an adversarial process that has more to do with making rejection arguments that might or might not be tenable and less about actually identifying patentable material. The type that fall into that camp see it as a victory every time they beat someone out of their application because whatever legit IP was in the application then becomes public--they've "won" for the public.
Things were a lot easier before 2007 when KSR v. Teleflex was decided by SCOTUS. That decision turned the subject of 'obviousness' on its ear and resulted in a patent bloodbath---patents falling like flies when reexamined under the new rules for obviousness. The big winners there were companies like Microsoft that immediately had hundreds of competitor's patents reexamined and thrown out---Free IP, from their perspective.
Yes, the examiners are overworked. That's why it's about 2 years before you receive your first rejection. Examiners are incentivised to dispose of as many applications as possible by a productivity point system that heavily favors rejections over allowance.
Just after KSR, the joke at the patent office was that it was now the "rejection office", and that was certainly the truth.
Naturally, I'm talking about utility patents not design patents. Those are much easier to get--like a TM, but offer virtually no real protection most of the time, being focused on form rather than a definable device. Change that form slightly and the design patent becomes irrelevant. They're useful for showing when you were using a particular design, I guess, but not worth it usually.
