USPTO to Use Peer to Patent Program

An anonymous reader writes "DailyTech is reporting that the US Patent and Trademark Office is going to start using the Peer to Patent program. From the article:' The US Patent and Trademark Office has been getting praise for officially launching the Peer to Patent program -- the purpose of Peer to Patent is to find patents that have been issued for already made products or items that don't properly qualify for a patent. Because the USPTO usually does not have the manpower and time to thoroughly check every patent that comes into the office, many are unjustly rubber stamped.' The program will utilize a Wiki, among other tools, to get the job done."

Comments

Two words:

[Vorondil28]

'bout time.

April Fools?

[Buzz_Litebeer]

I had to check the document date to make sure this wasnt a joke. How do we expect that the patent office will be able to take these peer patent reviews seriously? How will this stand up in a court of law?

Seems a bit shaky.

Re:April Fools?

[grasshoppa]

Doesn't matter where the data comes from, as long as it's verifiable, it's still valid data.

Re:Infant Stage

[Rob T Firefly]

I think that the Wiki is really in its infant stage as there's not much on it. A lot of times, don't they take a huge body of documents and then write an ingestor application to seed a serious Wiki?

It officially opens on May 12. They still have a few days to load it up beforehand.

There doesn't seem to be much incentive for the reviewer though I said the same thing about Wikipedia and been proven wrong. In my opinion, patent law is one of the dirtiest of trades and I don't have much desire to become involved in it at all.

That's exactly why many people will want to help out with this. Slashdot alone has enough people disgusted enough with the patent system to clean things up substantially and help fix it. People can always complain about things, but it's when they're willing to do something about it that things get done.

Re:Not as good as it seems....

[GigsVT]

who in the public is going to take the time to review 1,000 patent applications a week, search for prior art, and send the relevant art to the USPTO

Yeah, that's like expecting thousands of people to write a complete OS and all the applications for it. It'll never happen.

Why should this change anything at all?

[babbling]

What makes you think this will improve matters? Who exactly is going to go reading patents and reviewing them for the patent office?

Lawyers? No... they'd be much more interested in spending their time on similar work that they actually get paid for.
Developers/scientists/engineers? No... (AFAIK, IANAL) most legal advice suggests that you shouldn't go reading about patents in your field, and instead just read patents whenever they become relevant to you. (when you're being sued for infringement, for example)

I struggle to see how the patent office is going to get much out of this. I also struggle to see why people should contribute (without being paid) to such a broken system. Contributing in this way will not make the system any less broken. It will more likely just make it a bit easier to keep running it.

Re:Why should this change anything at all?

[mzwaterski]

Come on. Please read the article before complaining. The peer review process is merely to submit prior art. Everyone on slashdot now has the chance to submit all the prior art that they always talk about whenever a patent story is posted. The art will be reviewed by the examiner ultimately. The goal is to discover and have the examiner review the most relevant prior art. Microsoft can use its 100 user ids to submit prior art against itself...but they already have a duty to submit any art they know about...so your comment really doesn't apply.

Re:Why should this change anything at all?

[nead]

What makes you think this will improve matters?

Even if only 1 bad patent is prevented from passage and/or enforcement it will be an improvement.

Who exactly is going to go reading patents and reviewing them for the patent office?

Mike over at Tech Dirt of course.

Lawyers? No... they'd be much more interested in spending their time on similar work that they actually get paid for.

sure

Developers/scientists/engineers? No... (AFAIK, IANAL) most legal advice suggests that you shouldn't go reading about patents in your field, and instead just read patents whenever they become relevant to you. (when you're being sued for infringement, for example)

Most "consumerism" advice is never read anything, just bumble along in your daily life until you die. Some people read encyclopedia's for fun, some people read the law for fun, some people actually like to read patents. There certainly aren't millions of these people, but they are out there.

Contributing in this way will not make the system any less broken. It will more likely just make it a bit easier to keep running it.

Nobody said this was a silver bullet and you just pointed out a possible improvement in one matter as it were.

Re:Why should this change anything at all?

[just_another_sean]

As you say most people become concerned about patents when it affects them. But with all the litigation going on these days, especially in the tech industry, I think the number of people affected, and therefore possibly willing to contribute to this, is quite large. And it's not just company X getting sued that affects people. Sure company X is going to go all out to use this tool to their advantage and even contribute some knowledge back to it. Things really snowball though when a) affected end users become concerned, b) affected side markets become concerned (e.g. makers of Blackberry cases and accessories) and c) developers of software/services around a disputed technology become concerned. As a peer post pointed out the number of people on /. (and I would add Groklaw) alone who are willing to debunk bogus patents is a formidable force.

Although it's becoming cliché and tired at this point there is some truth to the "many eyeballs" line of reasoning. And debunking patent applications scratches the same type of itch in some people that hunting for security vulnerabilities and bugs does. Security researchers come in many forms so I won't generalize too much but a number of them do it for the sheer satisfaction of finding and reporting a vulnerability and the "cool factor" that comes with it. IMHO a lot of pro researchers and laymen alike would love a chance to participate in a system like this for patents.

Re:Why should this change anything at all?

['nother poster]

Well, I bet some of the Slashdot crowd can read legalese as well as the patent exameners, and really that doesn't matter. You read the patent. You think it means X, but it really means Y. You send information pertaining to prior art for X. Patent examener reviews your prior art, decides it isn't relevant to X, and is disqualified. Ta da. Basiclly this process is being tested so that examaners review prior art, not search for it.

I'm on the verge of tears

[Mateo_LeFou]

It is astonishing to me that USPTO might be getting a bit of a clue after decades of sucking. They deserve our applause and our help; remember, we're the ones who have been so pissed at them for screwing up the software industry. They look sincere, so bury the hatchet and edit that wiki!

Re:A step in the right direction.

[RingDev]

"This will no doubt help matters, but still the burden of this work is being put on the wrong people. It should be on those who want the patent in the first place."

But then there is a problem with motivation and bias. Maker of XYZ patent is of course going to say his patent is different than or a vast improvement over patent YXZ, even if the two are virtually identical. The patent submitter has a monetary stake at getting their patent approved, so of course they will do sufficient "research" to "prove" that their patent is unique and appropriate.

Thus the need for independent reviewers. Which is what frightens me somewhat about opening the process to peers. If MS submits a patent request for a new form of technology, Apple, Sun, IBM and who ever else wants to can flood the review panel with peers with a bias. Preventing MS from acquiring a patent (even a valid one) can prove to be financially beneficial to MS's competitors.

I think this system will help the process, but there still needs to be significant over-site to ensure that people are not buying the ability to block competitors' patents.

-Rick