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Crowdsourcing Site Offers Rewards To Bust Patents

Posted by timothy on from the here-you-get-valuable-mod-points dept.

holy_calamity writes "Article One Partners is a new startup that offers $50,000 rewards to people that find prior art for certain valuable patents. The company's founder told New Scientist she thought the initiative would improve 'patent quality' by increasing scrutiny on poor patents. She aims to profit by selling the information contributors collect, or trade stocks based on it. Current patents they are looking for help to bust include those being used by Konami to sue Harmonix over Rock Band and Guitar Hero."

8 of 96 comments (clear)

  1. Great by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Informative

    Kind of like ambulance chasing, huh?

    1. Re:Great by $RANDOMLUSER · · Score: 3, Informative

      Like outsourcing patent examiners after the fact that the real patent examiners have failed to do their job and issued a patent for something that had prior art.

      --
      No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
    2. Re:Great by kosty · · Score: 3, Informative

      Off-topic, I know, but in response to the rhetorical question: "Do cops get a percentage cut of any drug money they capture?" Personally? Not exactly -- legally, anyway -- but ...

      Cops rake in millions from drug busts
      Report: Cops Keeping Drug Money

      --
      "Democracy." It's just a slogan.
    3. Re:Great by triffid_98 · · Score: 2, Informative

      Perhaps this one also?

      SAN FRANCISCO/LOS ANGELES, March 12 (Reuters) - Gibson Guitar Inc has told Activision Inc (ATVI.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) that its wildly popular "Guitar Hero" video games infringe one of Gibson's patents, and Activision has asked a U.S. court to find the claim invalid.

      Gibson said the games, in which players press buttons on a guitar-shaped controller in time with notes on a TV screen, violates a 1999 patent for technology to simulate a musical performance.

  2. Re:Guitar Wanking Prior Art by MaWeiTao · · Score: 2, Informative

    NSFW if you work at the vatican

    I suppose you're trying to say only prudes will be offended by that link. But a pixelated penis is a penis nonetheless. I don't want to explain to my coworkers why I've got one sitting on my desktop, complete with pubes.

    Not safe for work. Period.

  3. Re:Maybe I'm missing something . . . by mpapet · · Score: 5, Informative

    Why not go after patent trolls

    The problem with that is that most companies with enough spare money to pay have created ridiculous patents.

    For example, the Telco's have ridiculously vague patents they've used to crush innovators like Vonage. A while ago, Microsoft was using language like, "[Insert OSS project demon] violates 23 Microsoft patents."

    The unfortunate among us know that Patent litigation is a way to bankrupt under-capitalized competitors. The beauty of this tactic is that most of it stays out of the media and the litigant typically repeats the litigation a variety of ways until the competitor is bankrupt. My definition of "patent troll" would include the fat, lazy and well-capitalized.

    So, "patent troll" is a pretty big umbrella.

    --
    http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
  4. Anti Patent Trolling by troll8901 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Another organization: Peer-to-Patent (aka Community Patent Review)

    Currently a pilot project, renewed once per year, as long as it's useful.

  5. Re:A lot of prior art is proprietary. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    I've had access to millions of LOC over the years that I couldn't legally release as proof of prior art without getting corporate legal involved,

    The one thing that everyone forgets regarding prior art is it isn't prior art unless it's published. From Wikipedia: "Prior art ... constitutes all information that has been made available to the public in any form before a given date that might be relevant to a patent's claims of originality. ... Information kept secret, for instance as a trade secret, is not usually prior art..." (italics added)

    Magically whipping out secret information which hasn't been published before doesn't invalidate the patent. In the whole "to promote progress of Science and the Useful Arts" sense, you should have either given it away, or claimed the patent yourself. Sitting on it as a trade secret doesn't promote anything, and you rightfully deserve to get screwed by someone else's patent.

    (Standard IANAL disclaimer)