Patent office will ask the public to “peer review” inventions

From: http://www.boingboing.net/2006/05/08/patent_office_will_a.html

 

"The US Patent and Trademark Office has launched "Peer to Patent," a community patent peer review project. The USPTO is overloaded with patent filings, so it does little or no investigation into patnets before rubber-stamping them, expecting that the courts will sort out who invented what. This changes the patent system from something that promotes invention to something that rewards companies who aggressively sue inventors. "

 

As someone working on my first invention for my company. I have mixed feelings on this one. First of all, the patent system is as slow as growing hair, and there is some opinion that anything gets through. I however think that it will turn companies against each other, and each company will spend millions trying to disprove a patent before it even has it’s fair chance to breath air.

 

This can’t be good for the little guys trying to patent stuff. We’ll see.