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Tapping the Web's Collective Wisdom For Patents 88

Posted by kdawson from the crowdsourcing-prior-art dept.
BountyX sends in a CNN story offering an update on the US patent office's experiment in crowdsourcing, called Peer-to-Patent. (We've discussed this initiative a few times in the last couple of years.) In its first year the program has dealt with a minuscule fraction of patent applications, which numbered over 467,000 in 2007, up over 97% from a decade earlier. "The Patent Office reports that it has issued preliminary decisions on 40 of the 74 applications that have come through the program so far. Of those, six cited prior art submitted only through Peer-to-Patent, while another eight cited art found by both the examiner and peer reviewers... [I]n its second year, Peer-to-Patent is being expanded to include claims covering electronic commerce and so-called 'business methods' ..."
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Tapping the Web's Collective Wisdom For Patents More

Tapping the Web's Collective Wisdom For Patents

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  • The Web's Collective Wisdom... (Score:3, Funny)

    by RuBLed ( 995686 ) on Tuesday September 16, 2008 @05:02AM (#25022679)
    is about -42 Libraries of Congress.

    (reply only with a more clever analogy)

  • Yes, there is room left for small time innovators (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anik315 ( 585913 ) <anik@alphaco r . n et> on Tuesday September 16, 2008 @05:12AM (#25022735)
    Even if you work with a very narrow scope and manage to keep your work well hidden from the public, there's usually going to be some prior art if your work has any value at all. Good innovation, however, is driven by the limitations of current technology. As long as your work builds upon what's been done in a meaningful way, your ideas should be patentable. Usually, this happens in corporations and academia because they're the only ones that have been working in the field long enough to know the limits of current technology, but it can definitely happen with small time innovators as well if they read alot technical literature on a particular subject.

    • ...there's usually going to be some prior art if your work has any value at all...As long as your work builds upon what's been done in a meaningful way, your ideas should be patentable.

      I'm sorry. You appear to be advocating the right to patent ideas which you were not the originator of. I find this objectionable. Your patents should only cover those precise parts which are novel. And even then only if they pass the conditions of originality and non-triviality.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Corwn of Amber ( 802933 )

      Usually, this happens in corporations and academia because they're the only ones that have been working in the field long enough to know the limits of current technology, but it can definitely happen with small time innovators as well if they read alot technical literature on a particular subject.

      Not always. In my chocolate factory, we had patented an idea; it must have been good, because as soon as the patent expired, everyone and their dog (in the chocolate world) began doing Just That.
      It was small-time innovation at the time... now a few years back (but much later), we met a guy who was using the same idea in his products and he thanked us for the idea that had made him rich. Way richer than us, I can tell you...

      But the idea was had without reading lots of technical stuff. All you need for having

    • In principle you're right. What you describe is how the concept behind patents is supposed to work.

      In reality, there's only pharmaceutics where the patent system works for the patent-owners remotely like your description. Everywhere else, patents have become a tool for mercantile suppression and corporate warfare; from which the economy as whole only suffers (with the exception of lawyers).

      Read http://researchoninnovation.org/dopatentswork/ [researchoninnovation.org] and http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/againstnew.htm [dklevine.com] on

    • It may not seem like it, but I think this statement

      there's usually going to be some prior art if your work has any value at all

      And this one

      As long as your work builds upon what's been done in a meaningful way

      conflict with each other. I'm not a patent expert, but I usually take prior art to mean that your idea has been done before and that you new idea does not have meaningful improvements to the existing ideas. The difficult part of patent examination is determining what changes are meaningful enough to warrant a patent. As an example, if I take an old process and use it in a web page instead of on the command line, I wouldn't consider that a mea

    • One way to increase one's chances of creating clear, usable, patentable drawings is to consider using Punch! ViaCAD. I do. I love it. It's WAY cheaper than AutoCAD, tho it has a Mac-ish interface. But, once one spends some time getting used to the sparse interface, it's features, and staying on top of or involved with the forums, ViaCAD could be a GODSEND. For me, the graphics are much more soothing to my eye, and less cluttered than AutoCAD. AC for certain has thousands of features, but for many struggling

  • A good plan (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MosesJones ( 55544 ) on Tuesday September 16, 2008 @05:41AM (#25022881) Homepage

    Now I'm sure there will be a bunch of people moaning that this is getting "us" doing "their" job for free. Well hell the time spent here on Slashdot having ago at the Patent office is already high enough so why not be constructive in using that time?

    The only problem I see with this is that they haven't really invested in the tech side of crowd sourcing. How about a SETI style desktop app that just notifies you and lets you go "ooooh that one looks crap, I'm taking it down" rather than a build it and they will come approach. The key here is going to be getting more eyes on the problem which means pushing the patents out rather than just waiting for people to respond. Personally I'd be happy to have a list of patents in my specialised areas that I could dissect and destroy. Its almost worthy of a CV mention, not just the patents that you've been granted but the ones that you've prevented being granted.

    Don't bitch and moan, this is a good use of the internet and crowd sourcing to get round a problem of dumb patent submissions from large corps. Yes its your time, but you'll just have to post one less time on Slashdot, and spend 5 minutes less reading comments on Digg.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by rtfa-troll ( 1340807 )

      Now, I'm not a patent lawyer (though nor, I suspect are you) so there might be something I'm missing, but I don't think this is a good use of our time.

      These patents have been accepted That means that we failed in peer to patent. The patents were accepted with new prior art. That means that it's no longer easy to use that prior art to challenge the patent. The patent examiner has taken it into account and accepted the patent anyway. I think that, if the prior art had remained secret, it could be broug

      • That isn't how cited art works. It doesn't magically stop being prior art if it is cited and the application is issued anyway. In fact, in litigation, it has the opposite affect from what you have dreamed up in that it's already on the record and MUST be examined by the court in renderings its decision.

        • It depends what question the court is examining. If the court is examining the question of whether something is covered by the patent then you are right. As long as you haven't done anything more than the prior art then it may help (but no more than prior art which you find and show wasn't taken into account.

          However, if the court is covering the question of whether the patent is valid at all; showing that prior art wasn't declared which should have been can have a real influence. It can also be useful

          • Exactly, patent applications are strengthened by prior art, but not in the sense that you mean. They are "strengthened" because they are narrowed. Good prior art helps cut away the crap and reveal the tiny nugget of gold that is the real invention. The applicant gets much less coverage, but he or she is on much firmer ground.
      • "The courts are a much harsher environment than the patent examiner for patents. " Well I am a patent agent and you have it backwards. It's much harder to invalidate a patent in court than in the patent office. For one reason, there is a higher burden of proof. In the patent office all you need to do is show that a patent is invalid by "a preponderance of evidence". That is, it is more likely to be invalid that valid. In the courts you have to show that a patent is invalid by "clear and convincing evi
    • it's a government office. if you're a U.S. taxpayer, we are already responsible for their job getting done. either we give them money to do it, or we pick up some of the labor ourselves. The patent system is such that the current dollars thrown at the USPTO are inadequate to supply enough bodies at the applications to properly vet them. Either (a) more money, or (b) open source it. I like (b). we just too to get someone to teach them to set up an RSS feed.
      • The USPTO is under the Commerce branch, but it is NOT taxpayer funded. The USPTO us funded by Applicants (those filing patent applications) and that money is allocated by Congress. Currently, the USPTO earns more money than Congress allocates it, and therefore that extra money goes to other non-USPTO uses, that if anything, lowers your taxes.

        • ok, a little roundabout, but still if the USPTO was to 'do its job better' and give more rigorous review as people want, it would take more man-hours under the current rule-set. This would require more funds that are currently allocated to the USPTO for this purpose. That would reduce the extra-money going to non-USPTO uses, which would then require more taxpayer funding for support.

          Thuso ,the uspto doing a better job without needing much more funding = lower money from the taxpayer.

    • The only problem I see with this is that they haven't really invested in the tech side of crowd sourcing.

      The problem I see with this is that it's not used for all patents. Actually though, while patents may of been helpful before I think they retard more than help progress. As it is inventors have the First mover advantage [wikipedia.org]. For those without the resources to build an invention, a contract or NDA can be used to take to prospective manufacturers or angle investors [wikipedia.org].

      Falcon

  • Simple answer: The USPTO is begging for a lawsuit from large corporates.
    Crowdsourcing has the potential to leak a company's "confidential" secrets, and hence a corporate will sue the government to overturn such a decision.
    Obviously the USPTO has better ways to spend its limited grant, so they will default or withdraw this decision.
    All good intentions can be undone with a lawsuit.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by FluffyWithTeeth ( 890188 )

      ...you do realise that patents are public domain?

      • If the light were invented today, it would be met with a dozen lawsuits from Gas Lamps Manufacturers Union, Candle Manufacturers Union, and Wicker makers union, while a dozen more lobbyists will descend on Capitol Hill and white house with protests. Our Homeland Defense secretary would go public announcing the administration unstinting support for the Gas and Candle makers while announcing that USPOT not grant the light bulb a patent on grounds of national security. "The heat generated from an incandescent

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by HungryHobo ( 1314109 )

      You know you're free to view those patents anyway.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Chemisor ( 97276 )

        > You know you're free to view those patents anyway.

        Only if you do not plan to have any ideas in forseeable future. You never know if you might think of something clever that is based on something from a patent you forgot you viewed. Then you will be liable for willful infringement instead of innocent one, and with triple the damages. So no, I would highly recommend you stay away from the patent database.

        • or if you do look at them, do so under a false name.

        • A lot of people share your views, but my personal experience as a technology manager is that I want to know about any possibly threatening patents as soon as possible so that I can take effective measures before I invest a lot of money in development. Thomas Edison did that. Before he started his light bulb development effort, he found and purchased an earlier light bulb patent. That made the patent a non issue and he could charge forward as fast as he could.

    • One step of a patent application is called "publishing" and it is where the application is publicly published.

      This is done so that any interested party can challenge the application.

      Patents are a deal between the public and the inventor that basically grants a few years of monopoly privileges to the invention in exchange for disclosing it into the public domain.

      A secret patent doesn't meet those goals.

  • I patented this back in 1997.

  • The problem with Patents (Score:3, Insightful)

    by delt0r ( 999393 ) on Tuesday September 16, 2008 @06:35AM (#25023081)
    The problem with patents is not so much that they are issued left right and center for just about any stupid claim. Its that is so expensive in terms of lawyers and most importantly *time* to challenge them. The courts seem to assume that a issued patent is by default valid where this is clearly not that case. At least not currently.

    The second biggest problem is that "someone skilled in the art..." really means a Judge who is skilled in legalese.

    The lawyers and patent attorneys are loving it.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by pacinpm ( 631330 )

      The problem with patents is not so much that they are issued left right and center for just about any stupid claim.

      You are wrong. It's the source of the problem.

      The courts seem to assume that a issued patent is by default valid where this is clearly not that case. At least not currently.

      See, now you are on to it. The courts assume the patent office is working as intended. They assume that PO is rejecting "wrong" patents. It's how they should work. The way to improve this is not lowering court costs but improving PO work.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by delt0r ( 999393 )
        The list of stupid patents goes a long way back. If there is a way to effectively challenge a patent in *under* a year (I think it perhaps takes over 5 currently) then folk won't try to get patents for things that are stupid. Then the large amounts of patent applications goes down and hence the quality of patent review goes up.

        Forcing all of this on the patent office could work if there was a lot more money *for the patent office*, as opposed to lawyers. Either the fees goes way up and/or they get a bigg

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by arth1 ( 260657 )

          Personally I see the incentive to innovate being more protected by an easy and even *lawyer less* (null lawyer model) method of challenging patents with prior art etc.

          Personally, I would like to see the USPTO go the way of the dodo. Or, rather, the way of the copyright office. Let everything be patented by default like copyrights, and as long as someone who produces something can reference other patents as the invention, or patentless inventions, they have done no wrong.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by delt0r ( 999393 )
            I don't follow. Copyright and patents are quite different. Patents are, by and large about inventions, while copyright is about a specific piece of work.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by kennykb ( 547805 )

      The second biggest problem is that "someone skilled in the art..." really means a Judge who is skilled in legalese.

      That's because the PHOSITA (Person Having Ordinary Skill In The Art) doesn't exist! If a lawyer tries to bring in an expert witness to testify that something is obvious to someone ordinarily skilled in the art, he's caught on Morton's Fork. Either (a) the witness is not an expert, and therefore cannot be qualified to testify, or (b) the witness is an expert, and is ipso facto extraordinarily skilled.

      The fact that an invention is obvious to someone who is extraordinarily skilled says nothing about whethe

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by delt0r ( 999393 )

        Or point out that even an ordinarily skilled lawyer can describe some everyday method and append the words "on the Internet?"

        A lawyer would still in fact see this as billable hours however, and therefore not without merit. ;)

      • Your lucky numbers are 10-28-5-12 and 43

  • Spamming and Trolling (Score:3, Informative)

    by Chris Rhodes ( 1059906 ) on Tuesday September 16, 2008 @06:56AM (#25023183) Journal
    I haven't seen the program, but if they intend to harness the "Wisdom of the Crowds", the signal-to-noise ratio is going to be a problem.

    www.peertopatent.org [peertopatent.org]

    That is the link to sign up and become a reviewer.

    dotank.nyls.edu [nyls.edu]

    That's the code of conduct, which lists conduct rules, moderator privileges, and the information contributors are required to provide.


    Apparently there is a voting system.

    That's going to be an interesting thing to watch. They're relying on the bulk of contributors defining the most appropriate content, kind of like slashdot.

    How well does that work anyways?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Sique ( 173459 )

      Yes, the idea is somewhat similar to Feynman's model of the "sum over paths" in quantum electrodynamics. Even if the single statement is completely bogus, in the end contradictionary statements will cancel each other out, and statements supporting each other are adding up to a kind of "truth vector".

      • But there's no guarantee that incorrect statements of prior art, or even just totally bogus statements will be contradictory. So I kind of get what you're saying, but I think it is easier and more correct to just visualize a bunch of people assigning a rank to each statement or sample. Then, those with higher rank move forward.

        E.g., these systems deal not only with possibly true statements, but totally incorrect, possibly spurious, statements.

        Seems more like something describable by natural computatio
    • And what is stopping someone from building a company that has an army of experts who can flood this system, and then sell that service to the companies with the most money?

      Wait... What am I waiting for??? I'll be rich!

      *ducks*
    • Actually, the biggest problem is getting applicants to volunteer their applications.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • signal to noise (Score:3, Insightful)

    by erroneous ( 158367 ) on Tuesday September 16, 2008 @07:51AM (#25023463) Homepage

    Given the level of understanding shown on this and other internet forums, I fear that the signal to noise ratio of such an initiative will be so poor that the whole thing will be a massive waste of time.

    How many ill-informed and inappropriate "prior art" submissions do the internet masses need to make before patent reviewers just start ignoring them?

  • Perhaps for traditional patent fields like machines and medicine it makes some sense to collaborate to increase the quality of patents. But in software, surely a better-quality software patent is just more of a threat and allows even more money to be extorted?

    Why should people help to reduce the costs of doing business for patent trolls? If you have prior art, better to keep quiet about it and reveal it after the patent is granted to neutralize the patent - not before, so the lawyers can reword the patent

  • Let's look at the numbers (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Zontar_Thing_From_Ve ( 949321 ) on Tuesday September 16, 2008 @09:03AM (#25024059)
    So more than 467,000 patents were filed in 2007. Let's just call it 467,000 to simplify the math. 74 patents were submitted to the program. So that means that 1 out of every 6310 patents were submitted to this program. As I have said before, this whole program is a scam designed to convince the complainers that the patent office is "doing something" about the "patent problem".
    b I used to work for the US government at one time and I can promise you all that they will never, never, never do anything to cut their funding and lowering the number of patents would cut their funding. They will instead set up bogus programs like this that will catch a few bad patents, which they will then hold up as examples that things are changing for the better. It's all smoke and mirrors.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by dsmall ( 933970 )

        467,000 patents in 2007? So that means...

        1,279 patents per day.

        Wow.

      And to make it even worse, there's no more Page Up or Page Down, because Microsoft has patented those. So you'd have to, like, down-arrow through the pages, which is WAY worse. (I assume the patent office hasn't discovered the mouse yet).

      But hey, try to think of it as ONLY 160 per hour!
      (Assuming an 8 hour day).

      Grin,

      Dave Small

  • This is ancient news. I submitted a (rejected) story about this last year.

  • Not everyone is sold on the concept of Peer-to-Patent. Stephen Key, an inventor in California who has patented everything from toys to container labels, worries that the program requires applicants to put their ideas out there on the Web for anyone to see -- and potentially steal.

    Is he not aware that one already has to publish an idea in order to patent it? Or is he relying on the fact that fewer people read patent applications than web articles?

  • How long until Amazon's lawyers realize that this is a blatant infringement of the patents that underlie their Mechanical Turk system?

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