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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."

5 of 96 comments (clear)

  1. Maybe I'm missing something . . . by catbertscousin · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why not go after patent trolls (there's prior art to his 'prior art'!) instead of companies who actually developed a product and patented it?

    --
    No good deed goes unpunished. - Avon, Blake's 7
    1. 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
  2. Re:Great by zappepcs · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Not quite like ambulance chasing. This is a reward for helping to see that the patent system gets the information it needs to work as it was designed. That is like outsourcing patent examiners, in an after the fact mode.

    --
    Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
  3. Re:Great by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    In an alternate universe where ambulance chasing improves the quality of patents, sure.

  4. Annoying Corporate Buzzwords by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny
    That's it! 'Crowdsourcing' just made the list!
    1. Synergy
    2. Paradigm
    3. Web 2.0
    4. SOA
    5. [some application] Killer
    6. Governance
    7. Cloud Computing
    8. Crowdsourcing