http://ipinthedigitalage.com/peer-to-patent-progress-or-not-so-much/ CPSC 182 at Yale College Mon, 18 May 2009 01:26:09 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 http://ipinthedigitalage.com/peer-to-patent-progress-or-not-so-much/comment-page-1/#comment-1815 Mike M Tue, 28 Apr 2009 16:39:33 +0000 http://ipinthedigitalage.com/?p=620#comment-1815 How willing are people going to be to contribute if they're required to make statements under penalty of perjury? Admittedly, it wouldn't be hard to avoid perjuring yourself, but I would be annoyed to subject myself even to that very small risk for the privilege of giving the USPTO free help. Affidavits, conflict checks, and threats of liability all raise the costs of contribution. Peer to Patent and similar systems live or die by the cost of contribution: consider Wikipedia allowing users to edit without logging in or creating accounts, despite substantial vandalism from unregistered editors How willing are people going to be to contribute if they’re required to make statements under penalty of perjury? Admittedly, it wouldn’t be hard to avoid perjuring yourself, but I would be annoyed to subject myself even to that very small risk for the privilege of giving the USPTO free help. Affidavits, conflict checks, and threats of liability all raise the costs of contribution. Peer to Patent and similar systems live or die by the cost of contribution: consider Wikipedia allowing users to edit without logging in or creating accounts, despite substantial vandalism from unregistered editors

]]> http://ipinthedigitalage.com/peer-to-patent-progress-or-not-so-much/comment-page-1/#comment-1811 Brian L Tue, 28 Apr 2009 15:53:18 +0000 http://ipinthedigitalage.com/?p=620#comment-1811 Interesting post, James! I don't think the affidavits of no conflict of interest or similar mechanism would be all that difficult to implement. Since contributors to Peer to Patent need to make user accounts, perhaps users could be required, under penalty of perjury, to state both the company for which they work, the industry in which they work, and whether or not they have been contracted by the party filing the patent or a competitor. If, for example, a patent examiner sees that an employee of Palm is alleging prior art exists demonstrating that Apple should not be able to patent multi-touch technology, the examiner can apply more scrutiny to this claim. Interesting post, James! I don’t think the affidavits of no conflict of interest or similar mechanism would be all that difficult to implement. Since contributors to Peer to Patent need to make user accounts, perhaps users could be required, under penalty of perjury, to state both the company for which they work, the industry in which they work, and whether or not they have been contracted by the party filing the patent or a competitor. If, for example, a patent examiner sees that an employee of Palm is alleging prior art exists demonstrating that Apple should not be able to patent multi-touch technology, the examiner can apply more scrutiny to this claim.

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