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.

Re:Admitting the Problem

[MadUndergrad]

Albert Einstein didn't work at the United States Patent and Trademark Office. He wasn't in America at that time.

Re:Admitting the Problem

[MTocci]

He didn't work for the USPTO, but he did work for the Swiss Patent office before getting his landmark papers published in 1905. He didn't write patents, he was a patent examiner.

Re:Gaming public review

[e4g4]

A cursory examination of the site (peertopatent.org) gives me the impression that in order to give objections to a given patent any credence, one must in fact provide proof (i.e. a link to a previous patent, or to a peer-reviewed article). Admittedly, this has its own limitations, but nevertheless, my (admittedly brief) examination of the site gave me the impression that even in the free-for-all discussion section, the contributions are well thought out and well supported.

This can certainly be explained by the (very) small population of contributors, but at the same time I think trolls would be easily identifiable and just as easily disregarded. Since the prior art that is actually evaluated by the USPTO is determined by the community (I believe they submit the top 10 highest rated prior art examples to the patent office), I believe that there is a sufficient corrective force in the community based system to prevent people with profit-driven agendas from significantly changing the judgement of a patent.