(2012-09-21) Stack Exchange Patent Reform

AskPatents is a new Stack Exchange site launching today that allows anyone to participate in the Patent examination process. It’s a collaborative effort, supported by Stack Exchange, the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), and the Google Patent Search team... Ask Patents is a collaborative effort, neatly tagged by keywords and classification, and searchable by patent application number. It is inspired by a research project called Peer To Patent, run out of New York Law School. That pilot project, created by Professor Beth Noveck, proved very successful at identifying Prior Art that the USPTO wouldn’t otherwise have known about.