From a new white paper on the IBM website: "Until now, only the U.S. patent office has been allowed to review patent applications and determine whether or not the invention claimed is worthy of a patent license. While this system worked reasonably well for a couple of centuries, the current volume and degree of complexity in most patent applications threatens to swamp today's USPTO."
"Patent examiners are currently trying to make decisions that will shape an industry about a twenty-year grant of monopoly rights on the basis of information contained only in the USPTO's internal databases," Beth Simone Noveck, director of the Institute for Information Law and Policy at New York Law School, wrote in a paper describing the challenges facing the current system and the potential of a Community Patent Review process. "Examiners may not consult the public nor may they talk to experts or, in most cases, even use Google. The information upon which examiners may rely in making a determination is further limited by poor or ambiguous drafting by applicants and the fact that there is no onus upon those applying for a patent to supply adequate information to the examiner. The costs of searching fall to the Patent Office alone."
"The Community Patent Review process-a project of the Institute and sponsored by IBM, General Electric, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, and Red Hat-is designed to enable the public to collaboratively assist in the evaluation of patent applications by providing pertinent information to patent examiners on prior art that might narrow or even invalidate a pending published patent application."
"By using social software, such as social reputation, collaborative filtering and information visualization tools, the project seeks to apply the "wisdom of the crowd"-or, more accurately, the wisdom of the experts-to complex social and scientific problems. This could make it easier to protect an inventor's investment while safeguarding the marketplace of ideas."
Beth's been doing some great work on this project. Very nice to see it getting some promotion out there.