Welcome to Peer to Patent
Peer-to-Patent is a historic initiative by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) that opens the patent examination process to public participation for the first time. Peer-to-Patent is an online system that aims to improve the quality of issued patents by enabling the public to supply the USPTO with information relevant to assessing the claims of pending patent applications.
This pilot project connects an open network for community input to the patent examination process by identifying and ranking prior art relevant to the patent application in question. The community supplies information and research based on its expertise. The patent examiner makes the final determination on the basis of legal standards.
This process combines the democracy of open participation with the legitimacy and effectiveness of administrative decision making.
Peer-to-Patent provides an opportunity to:
- Open up the closed patent review process to more information and enable better decision making.
- Improve the existing system by avoiding the issuance of overly broad patents.
- Demonstrate empirically the role that non-governmental experts can play in improving decision making.
This is more than just a Web site about patent applications—it makes public participation relevant to actual decision making.
Go to www.peertopatent.orgJoin the Peer to Patent Community
Welcome to Post Issue Peer to Patent
As the name implies, Post-Issue Peer-to-Patent takes the same community-based approach as Peer to Patent, but in this case, for issued patents. During the last decade the USPTO was at times overwhelmed by the number of patent applications being filed in areas of new technology, such as software and business methods. Lacking access to comprehensive prior art in these subject matter areas, the USPTO had little choice but to grant patents that would otherwise have failed the test of patentability had that prior art been before the examiner. For a variety of reasons, both holders of those patents and third-parties may wish to have such patents evaluated against a more rigorous search for prior art. The rigor is provided by the community of peer reviewers who elect to participate in the review.
By providing the platform and mechanism for the gathering of prior art, the Center seeks to provide a means of improving knowledge about issued patents. Are such patents valid? Are they overbroad in their claims? Do they relate to subsequently developed technology? With this improved knowledge, industry participants can be more certain as to the metes and bounds of such patents, and such clarity works to provide a more efficient marketplace for innovation.
For more information, go to http://www.nyls.edu/centers/centers_and_institutes/center_for_pa...
Go to www.post-issue.orgJoin the Post Issue Peer to Patent Community
Welcome to Defensive Publications
Defensive publications, which are endorsed by the USPTO as an IP rights management tool, are documents that provide descriptions and artwork of a product, device or method so that it enters the public domain and becomes prior art. This powerful preemptive disclosure prevents other parties from obtaining a patent on the product, device or method. It enables the original inventor to ensure that they have access to their invention by preventing others from later making patent claims on it. It also means that they do not have to shoulder the cost of patent applications.
The Defensive Publications program, a component of Linux Defenders, enables non-attorneys to use a set of Web-based forms to generate defensive publications. It relies on substantial participation from the open source community as it relates to disclosures. Defensive publication drafts will be reviewed and edited as needed and at no charge by OIN’s attorneys. The completed defensive publication will be added by OIN to the IP.com database, which is in turn used by IP attorneys and the patent and trademark office to search for prior art when examining patent applications.
Go to www.defensivepublications.org
