I remember reading years ago about a community of volunteers who reviewed pending patent applications with a view to getting frivolous ones rejected. An example was Microsoft trying to patent thumbnails I believe. I can't find the name of the community any more though. Does this ring a bell for anyone?
1 Answer
I think you've found it. One of the reasons Ask Patents was established (I believe since it predates my time here) was to identify prior art in order to fight patent applications. From the about section for Ask Patents.
Ask Patents blocks dangerous applications by alerting the US Patent Examiner of record when good Prior Art is found for an application that he or she is examining.
Some users help by identifying dangerous patent applications. Other users help by finding Prior Art related to dangerous patent applications.
Ask Patents blocks dangerous applications by alerting the US Patent Examiner of record when good Prior Art is found for an application that he or she is examining.
In practice, this hasn't worked out because the experts in any specific technical field, specifically software, rarely visit this site. Since the experts don't see the prior art request, little valuable examples are generated.
I'm not sure how to remedy this. Prior art requests are off topic on Stack Overflow and there is no way I know of to make the experts on another Stack Exchange site aware of the request on Ask Patents.
