For a hacker trying to find data suggesting the PTO and possibly some patent agents are not performing due diligence, where would you propose we start?
How many patent agents are there employed by PTO? Are they all full time?
Let's publicize who the actual people reviewing the patents are, some personal accountability for the patents someone issues or approves could be powerful. I'd like to understand the KPI's of the PTO, are there patent agents issuing patents faster than possible? Robo signing? Are there incentives for an agent to issue more patents to keep organization wide throughput high? Where can I get Open Data related to the PTO?
Handling bad and dirty values from business users is the bread and butter of the data cleansing industry. Cleaning user inputs is standard, if you expected to build a database application without having to properly clean user submitted records, you have sent yourself on a fools errand.
You know what else you saw while at Zynga? The stock price drop like a rock. They spent two months teaching you things someone in your position of Technical Assistant to CEO of a public company should already know. This is an example of poor allocation of resources.
Do both. Learn on your own and pay someone to do the heavy lifting, eventually you can help them while at the same time making real progress. Learning to code has made me a better designer, communicator, manager, thinker. You will not regret it if you learn.
Good, that guy wasted your time, bandwidth, annoyed your real customers and users. This amounts to money out of your pocket, it's only fair he see some sort of money out of his, hopefully the release of his info will cause this. But more likely you have trained him how not to get caught the second time around. I doubt he will face any penalty, as he is in LATVIA!!! If you really wanted to stop him you should board a plane and show up at his door.
Some communities have made rental owners register their properties as rentals. I live in a college town and we have problems with uncut lawns, trash, noise violations. The rental registry is a way to track the actual owner of the property and not the sometimes ever changing occupant.
"So why on Earth would anyone assume that an expansion of a legal mess started in the larger markets, into the smaller ones, is driven by a sudden intense concern about market share?" It makes more sense if you assume the declining market share is a result of consumers buying competitors products. I can't imagine anyone delivering a sales report at Apple in which they say market share is shrinking in Germany and France,and have that report well received.
When looking at overall worldwide market growth, the next logical step is to look at sub market growth by country, it is the next smaller logical unit. Each country is it's own market. Just because the larger markets are where the growth is strongest doesn't mean you abandon the smaller markets and allow your competitors to run wild. When looking at the small markets together they are one big market.