Open Sources | Rodrigues & Urlocker » US Patent Office experiments with open source (approach)

June 12, 2007 | Comments: (0)

US Patent Office experiments with open source (approach)

TAGS: Open Source

As BetaNews reports, the US Patent & Trademark Office is taking widespread complaints seriously in how it approaches a crush of patent applications:

As urgent appeals for lawmakers to finally address multiple defects in US patent law appear to finally be taken seriously, the US Patent and Trademark Office is considering riding this wave of upheaval and making a tremendous change of its own: Last week, it announced its official support of a Web site whose purpose will be to encourage citizens to assess the validity of patent applications for themselves, and issue challenges where necessary.

The goal is to expedite the discovery of "prior art" - creations that existed before the applicant for a patent claimed he invented them. If successful, the Peer-to-Patent Web site could become a kind of SourceForge for intellectual property integrity.

Interestingly, the approach is being backed by Red Hat, Microsoft, GE, and others. Clearly, patent reform is a universal concern, and it's good to see widespread, diverse support for the approach.

Now let's see the USPTO do this open source review process with open source software powering it.... :-)

Posted by Matt Asay on June 12, 2007 10:18 AM

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