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AskPatents.com: A Stack Exchange To Prevent Bad Patents

blog.stackoverflow.com

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Re: AskPatents.com: A Stack Exchange To Prevent Bad Patents

#32

Post by joshuahedlund »

My favorite part is how the Patent Office director approached Stack Exchange about doing this. As someone who leans libertarian, it's easy to learn about the bad ways government restricts innovation, such as the current patent system, and assume that all government agents involved are either bumbling bureaucrats inadvertently screwing up the system or corrupted cronies deliberately screwing up the system. Of course, those kinds of people exist, but it's encouraging to see that the director is taking intelligent and thoughtful steps to improve his office's work, as well as a pleasant reminder that my default stereotypes about government employees are often wrong. Not a panacea for the patent debacle, of course, but an awesome step in the right direction.

Re: AskPatents.com: A Stack Exchange To Prevent Bad Patents

#33

Post by maxerickson »

lambada wrote: post #8

Part of me is cringing that each Patent gets its own tag, given that it's likely there won't often be more than a few topics per patent.

The whole thing only makes sense as giving a way for the public to more directly communicate with examiners. Keeping the bar very low for examiners is a key component of that.

It will be interesting to see how much of the activity ends up being useful.

Re: AskPatents.com: A Stack Exchange To Prevent Bad Patents

#34

Post by schammy »

The problem is that the window to submit prior art is still very small (6-18 months basically) and prior art must be submitted before the patent is approved. This means that all of the bullshit patents that already exist? Those are still good and always will be. Very unfortunate.

Re: AskPatents.com: A Stack Exchange To Prevent Bad Patents

#35

Post by creamyhorror »

This seems wonderful. It's exactly the sort of practical solution that could really make a big dent in the patent problem, and to see it actually come into being with the cooperation of the USPTO and Google Patent Search is very, very heartening.

I hope folks here will take time to read this new site from time to time and raise any particularly problematic patent applications to their circles. There's the risk of reading a patent and then potentially being made liable for trebled damages, but hopefully any ridiculous patents will get filtered out by this system, reducing the risk of violation in the first place.

I see a two-tier system emerging: a group of "frontline" patent reviewers reading AskPatents regularly, and a wider group of people interested in patents within an industry. If only the really problematic patents are brought to the attention of the wider group, they won't have to worry so much about liability for trebled damages. The "frontline" people reading new submissions on AskPatents and trumpeting out the basket cases - they'll be the ones taking on the trebled-damages risk. I hope there'll be some among us who can play this role. (It'll probably end up being interested hobbyists or the patent-hunting departments of large corporations.)

edit: I wonder if there's any mechanism for discussion of approved patents? This might provide the seed material for patent reexamination, which in turn allows for patent invalidation. If people review approved patents and start offering prior art for some, any patent trolls intending to wield those patents might start having second thoughts, because it'll look like those patents are on shaky legal ground. This way, even after being granted, questionable patents could still be cast into doubt. Maybe I'm overoptimistic, but how far could Spolsky/the PTO push this?

edit2: Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like there's no "patent application stream" on AskPatents, so it's basically a bog-standard discussion board for patents right now. It might be more handy if it had an integrated feed from the patent application database (no need for an API, even an RSS feed would work).

Re: AskPatents.com: A Stack Exchange To Prevent Bad Patents

#37

Post by rprasad »

joshuahedlund wrote: post #32

My favorite part is how the Patent Office director approached Stack Exchange about doing this. As someone who leans libertarian, it's easy to learn about the bad ways government restricts innovation, such as the current patent system, and assume that all government agents involved are either bumbling bureaucrats inadvertently screwing up the system or corrupted cronies deliberately screwing up the system. Of course,…

Most of the problems in government stem from the horribly written legislation. Bureaucrats are tasked with bringing sanity and order to the chaos that lawmakers provide them. You never hear about the vast majority of bureaucrats, because they do their jobs like they're supposed to. It's only on those (relatively) rate occasions when they screw up that it becomes news.

Re: AskPatents.com: A Stack Exchange To Prevent Bad Patents

#38

Post by rprasad »

ck2 wrote: post #10

It's a shame the patent office cannot/will not crowdsource patent research before approval. I bet if an examiner posted each patent application during review, within 24 hours prior art would be posted for each one, most especially software patents. Maybe we can get congress to pass a law - ha, nevermind what am I even thinking...

It's a shame the patent office cannot/will not crowdsource patent research before approval.

The PTO approached SE and asked them to do this as part of their efforts to reform the patent system without waiting for Congress to get around to it.

I bet if an examiner posted each patent application during review, within 24 hours prior art would be posted for each one, most especially software patents.

They already do this; indeed, they are required to do so by law, and indeed, public posting of each patent application is a fundamental part of the patent process. Not many people actually bother to post prior art.

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