'Unpatent' Begins Crowdfunding Challenges To Bad Patents (unpatent.co)

"Unpatent is a crowdfunding platform that eliminates bad patents," reads their web site. "We do that by crowdsourcing the prior art -- that is all the evidence that makes clear that a patent was not novel -- and filing reexamination requests to the patent office." An anonymous Slashdot reader reports: "Everyone in the world can back the crowdfunding campaign against the patent," explains their site, which includes a special section with "Featured stupid patents". The first $16,000 raised covers the lawyers and fees at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and "The rest is distributed to those who find valid prior art...any evidence that a patent is not novel. We review all the prior art pieces and reward those that may invalidate a claim... Then, we file an ex partes reexamination to the USPTO."

Their team includes Lee Cheng, the legal officer at Newegg, "worldwide renowned as the patent trolls' nightmare," as well as Lus Cuende, who created his own Linux distro when he was 15 and is now CTO of Stampery, a company using the Bitcoin blockchain to notarize data.
They're currently targeting the infamous US8738435 covering "personalized content relating to offered products and services," which in February the EFF featured as their "stupid patent of the month." Its page on Unpatent.co argues that "Taking something so obvious such as personalizing content and offers...and writing the word online everywhere shouldn't grant you a monopoly over it." Unpatent's slogan? "We invalidate patents that shouldn't exist."

Comments

Doesn't solve the problem

[110010001000]

The problem is that the patent system is broken. You are just treating the symptoms, not curing the disease. You are making the lawyers lot of money though I guess, which is probably why the Newegg lawyer thought of this brilliant idea.

Re:Doesn't solve the problem

[rtb61]

Morally speaking if you invalidate a patent that a corrupt patent office approved without obvious due diligence, should you not be able to recover that cost from the corrupted patent office and then legally speaking be able to charge the approving officer of that patent with a constitutional crime ie approving a patent that did not adhere to constitutional requirements.

bad patents

[jmcvetta]

All patents are bad patents. The ownership of ideas is immoral and should be abolished.

Re:bad patents

[jmcvetta]

What you describe is but a lesser example of the many problems with capitalism. However it seems implausible that, without immoral ownership of ideas, innovation will just grind to a halt. People were inventing things long before these badlaws were enacted, and will continue to do so in their absence.