Peer to Patent Project
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Peer to Patent Project edit (Category edit)
Community Patent Review edit (Category edit)
http://dotank.nyls.edu/communitypatent/about.html.
UPDATE: The United States Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) selected the Institute's Community Patent Review Project as one of its strategic initiatives that will be implemented to improve and streamline the patent application review process.Press Release: http://dotank.nyls.edu/communitypatent/pressrelease_082906.html
The patent system needs our help. The United States Patent Office is actively seeking ways to bring greater expertise to bear on the review of patent applications and ensure that only worthwhile inventions receive the patent monopoly. Currently, underpaid and overwhelmed examiners struggle under the backlog of applications. Under pressure to expedite review, patents for unmerited inventions are approved.
Sponsored by Computer Associates, General Electric, Hewlett Packard, IBM, Intellectual Ventures, Microsoft, Red Hat, the MacArthur Foundation, and the Omidyar Network, the Community Patent Review project seeks to create a peer review system for patents that exploits network technology to enable innovation experts to inform the patent examination procedure. In every field of scientific endeavor, peer review is a critical quality control mechanism to improve innovation. Throughout the public sector both peer review and citizen consultation are either legally mandated or practiced as a way to inform policymaking.
The Community Patent Review project aims to design and pilot an online system for peer review of patents. By using social software, such as social reputation, collaborative filtering and information visualization tools, we can apply the “wisdom of the crowd” – or, more accurately the wisdom of the experts – to complex social and scientific problems. This could make it easier to protect the inventor’s investment while safeguarding the marketplace of ideas.
For more information, please read the background paper: "Peer to Patent": Collective Intelligence, Open Review and Patent Reform (Beth Noveck, 2006). More project-related documents can be found at our Systems page. The Peer to Patent article offers a draft proposal for design of the software and the system. The paper will serve as input to the Community Patent Workshops where the proposal will be refined into a specification and prototype.
