Patent Reviews Via Wiki

unboring writes "Fortune reports on a pilot program where the patent approval process would be opened to outsiders for review. Reviewers can vote and discuss on different proposals, through say a wiki. Given the many (recent and past) patent approval fiascos, this seems like a good idea. It'll be interesting to see how they would deal with the issues faced by Wikipedia."

Comments

This will produce some *very* unhappy campers.

[70Bang]

Specifically, those who would ordinarily slip through the cracks because someone doesn't catch prior art.

A significant population with an [almost] unmeasurable body of knowledge and information would do a pretty thorough job of flagging someone which the patent examiners working under extremely high pressure to push things down the assembly line. This would make the examiner's job one of validation of claims posted via wiki.

One question remains: What's going to happen if we see a couple of companies who shall remain nameless and are granted patents by filling out a pre-approved form are faced with prior art (or silly art) claims and the company receives the approval anyway? That might prove there's some monkey business is afoot. (Donating a Playboy Bunny to their favorite charity? (Charity begins at home)

Re:If you build it, they will abuse it.

[ian_mackereth]

One of the best features of a wiki is that all the edits are visible. If there's consistent corruption of particular information damaging to a claim, then that's the information to look at!

I suspect that there will be more need for accountability than there is with, say, wikipedia, but just having the facts unearthed by an army of interested persons will be valuable.

The mere fact of having some prior art or other pertinent information on the wiki won't be 'make or break', but an idea of what factors need independent verification should add enormous value to the Patent Office's research.

Some real flaws

[aiken_d]

I hate patent abuse as much as the next guy, but this seems like it's just begging for abuse.

How's this for a (new) patent abuse business model:
- Watch patent review wiki for interesting stuff
- Steal good ideas that other people have
- Instantly work on creating pre-dated "prior art" on websites, blog postings, etc
- Use shill accounts to point out the "prior art"
- Make some good cash off of other peoples' R&D

Or how's this for a "fuck with a much-hated company" mob mentality:
- Watch for patent applications from the hated company
- Instanlty work on creating pre-dated "prior art" on websits, blog postings, etc
- Post to slashdot, digg, etc, linking to the manufactured "prior art"
- Watch while thousands of tech zealots slam the patent on the wiki, citing your dishonest "prior art"

There are plenty more ways to abuse this, of course, those two just came to mind quickly and are kind of amusing.

The patent system is broken, that's for sure. But this isn't the answer. Or at least, if this is the answer, we might as well do away with patents altogether, since they will be very, very easy to dishonestly undermine. I know I'll get jumped on here, so let me ask that if you favor simply removing patents (or software patents, or whatever) from the law, please just say that and don't defend this terrible idea because it gets the outcome that you want while still pretending to support the idea of patents.

-b

Re:Project Red Herring

[simong_oz]

It's like some persons who are clueless about patent reality thought of a new solution at the round table.

Even worse, it's a solution to a problem which doesn't actually exist. The vast majority of people think they understand the patent process but simply don't. Publication is a vital part of the process, as is prior art assessment, demonstrating novelty and non-obviousness (to a "person skilled in the art"). You get a patent (ie. exclusive right to commercially prosper) for a set amount of time (20 years in most places) in exchange for disclosing the idea to everybody.

There is nothing to stop you filing a patent application which is an exact copy of an existing, granted patent. That patent application could go to PCT and be published at 18 months and then progress into national levels in individual territories. This could take 3-5 years and can happen without anyone in the patent office having actually examined the validity of that patent . If the patent application was published without an international search report, it might not even have been cross-referenced against the existing patent database!

Even granted patents are technically not valid until they have been challenged and upheld by a court.