"yet all declined, citing prior art. I"
I've always wondered if when one of these cases happens the "prior art" document is incorporated into the list of documents the USPTO should check the to see if this has been done before.
Doing this should widen the knowledgebase sufficiently to stop later attempts at patents from being accepted, filtering out rubbish.
Nahhhhh.
That would prevent the pack of scum bag lawyers involved from trousering the large green. they love so much and deprive the USPTO of income.
so probably not.