A Patently Different System

The Patent and Trademark Office is taking several steps to deal with its difficulty in keeping up with the pace of patent applications. For example, they're adding examiners by the hundreds and seeking to make room for them by encouraging a telework program. Now PTO is about to get even more creative: A front-page story in the Washington Post today details a new pilot project aimed at building a system to collect outside opinions on patent applications. It would include a community rating system aimed at pushing the most important applications to the top of the pile. Microsoft, Intel, Hewlett-Packard, Oracle and IBM already have signed up to have their patent applications reviewed online. So how do you keep people from gaming the system? The designers of the patent project are talking to the folks at eBay about that.