US Patent and Trademark Office goes social

Filed under: Internet, News, Web services

US Patent and Trademark Office goes social

by Brad Linder Mar 5th 2007

It's not question that the United States patent system has got some issues. So what's the latest proposal by the US Patent and Trademark Office? Recruit the wisdom of the masses.

A pilot project launching soon will put patent applications up on the web, allowing visitors to the site to post comments. There'll also be a rating system for comments, pushing the most popular comments to the top of the list. In other words, users who visit Digg, Netscape, and other social news web sites will find the process pretty familiar, and could play a role in approving or rejecting patents.

The first items to go online will be about 250 patent applications related to software design. That's a field where it's quite likely that many visitors to the web site will have greater expertise than the patent officers reviewing the applications.

Tags: digg, netscape, patent, patent office, PatentOffice, patents, social, trademark, us patent and trademark office, UsPatentAndTrademarkOffice

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

tarkan said 6:50PM on 3-06-2007

So, shall we be working for the Patent Office, for free?
Will the Patent Office, at least, lower their fees after this?
If the patent officers admit that some web visitors are more knowledgable and/or experienced in software design, why don't they altogether abandon issuing patents in areas they don't comprehend at all? What's worse is, the state of software patents issued so far after their admittance of incompetitiveness. What a shame.

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