Patent Office Program To Speed Computer Tech

coondoggie writes "Looking to address critics, the US Patent and Trademark Office this week is starting a program to speed up and improve the review of computer hardware and software technologies. The agency is set to launch a peer-review pilot project that will give technical experts in computer technology, for the first time, the opportunity to submit technical reports relevant to the claims of a published patent application before an examiner reviews it. The idea is to get as much knowledge about a particular claim in front of an examiner as quickly as possible so they can make a decision faster, the agency said. IBM, Microsoft, General Electric, Hewlett-Packard, CA, and Red Hat have already agreed to review some software patent applications for the one-year community review project. Intel, Sun, Oracle, Yahoo, and others are also part of the project. The pilot is a joint initiative with the Community Patent Review Project, organized by the New York Law School's Institute for Information and Policy.

Comments

How about...

[Consul]

"from the foxes-guarding-the-henhouse dept."

That's basically what this is.

Re:Submarine Patents

[edwdig]

What meeting between a startup and Microsoft doesn't result in the startup getting screwed?

Computer Program?

[tezza]

if("Microsoft".equals(patent.client.name) ) {
      approve(); return;
}
else if ("Google".equals(patent.client.name)) {
      approve(); return;
}
else if ("IBM".equals(patent.client.name)) {
      approve(); return;
}
else {
      inspect(); return;
}