Behind the USPTO's Working With Peer-To-Patent

Down-with-the-patents writes "As this community discussed earlier, the US Patent and Trademark Office is collaborating with the Peer-to-Patent program to stop bad patents from issuing. Brigid Quinn, spokesperson for the USPTO, explains the motivation of the USPTO to open up to the public what has been a behind-closed-doors process. Groklaw's Pamela Jones notes that 'when it comes to software, there is more knowledge outside of USPTO than inside it.' While some of Jones's readers are staying away from the pilot program, hoping that the patent system will just collapse of its own weight, Jones says that's a goal she understands but doesn't view as realistic. The project seems to be doing pretty well with over 1,000 active participants, and plans to replicate it in other patent offices starting with the UK next year." Slashdot and Linux.com toil for the same corporate overlord.

Comments

Admitting the Problem

[moore.dustin]

Well regardless of the outcome of the program, at least the admitted the issue as being true. People know more about software that are not directly affiliated with the USPTO. Knowing and admitting that this is true is a significant step in the process of fixing the system. Seeing that the door is open, regardless of how wide, is a good sign that things may be able to worked out with technology and all other patents alike.

The valid patents are worst

[BlueParrot]

Of course this doesn't help at all because the patents that can cause the most trouble are the valid ones. Under current law you could easily get a valid patent on a media encoding format as an example, and suddenly the free software community is banned from implementing it. This is why mp3s cause problems. Prior art can't fix this problem, only a change in legislation can.

Build and Generate Revenue to get a full patent.

[Runesabre]

White paper design proposals should only be given limited patent protection with the requirement of a fully functional, revenuing generating implementation completed within a limited time frame before being granted full patent rights, protection and legal authority to sue for infringement. That would eliminate the patent trolls.

Trivial/obvious patents are a bit more difficult since many things seem obvious or trivial after the fact.

Re:Not trying to be a grammar nazi (I promise)

[smallfries]

More worryingly than that - why start a program designed to cut down on bad software patents in the UK. Software patents aren't legal over here...