Comments on: Patent Monkey: Patent Applications Meet Social Review http://www.crunchgear.com/2007/03/06/patent-monkey-patent-applications-meet-social-review/ Gadgets, gear and computer hardware. Sat, 05 Dec 2009 11:12:16 -0500 hourly 1 By: J. Matthew Buchanan http://www.crunchgear.com/2007/03/06/patent-monkey-patent-applications-meet-social-review/comment-page-1/#comment-135560 J. Matthew Buchanan Wed, 07 Mar 2007 11:28:52 +0000 http://crunchgear.com/2007/03/06/patent-monkey-patent-applications-meet-social-review/#comment-135560 The community review pilot is a very worthwhile project and everyone involved deserves kudos for bringing it to life. I'm struggling, though, to see why it needs to be so complicated. Can't the Patent Office simply publish a copy of each and every application on the web, open comments up to everyone in the world, and regenerate the published application to include any and all submitted comments each time an electronic copy of the application is requested? Sure, some apps would receive "this patent is ridiculous" type comments, but the openness of such a system would surely encourage more thoughtful input from those able to provide it. Such an approach could be built with a few basic technological modifications to the current electronic publication system. The Office could redesign the current publication template to include a comments submission form that collects comments - from anyone - in a database record associated with the application number. Each time the published application is requested, the database could be called to dump all associated comments onto the publication page, ensuring that every request to view an electronic copy of the published application always provides a current listing of comments from the community. At examination time, the patent Examiner could simply review a listing of comments received from the public, dismissing the irrelevant ones while giving the significant ones their due. Couldn't it be this simple? We built PatentFizz ( http://www.patentfizz.com ) based on these principles in an effort to enable community review of issued patents. Anyone can submit a comment on a patent, ranging from "this patent is ridiculous" to a full invalidity analysis. We even accept anonymous comments. It seems that a similar system could be quite effective for community review of published applications. The community review pilot is a very worthwhile project and everyone involved deserves kudos for bringing it to life. I’m struggling, though, to see why it needs to be so complicated. Can’t the Patent Office simply publish a copy of each and every application on the web, open comments up to everyone in the world, and regenerate the published application to include any and all submitted comments each time an electronic copy of the application is requested? Sure, some apps would receive “this patent is ridiculous” type comments, but the openness of such a system would surely encourage more thoughtful input from those able to provide it.

Such an approach could be built with a few basic technological modifications to the current electronic publication system. The Office could redesign the current publication template to include a comments submission form that collects comments – from anyone – in a database record associated with the application number. Each time the published application is requested, the database could be called to dump all associated comments onto the publication page, ensuring that every request to view an electronic copy of the published application always provides a current listing of comments from the community.

At examination time, the patent Examiner could simply review a listing of comments received from the public, dismissing the irrelevant ones while giving the significant ones their due.

Couldn’t it be this simple?

We built PatentFizz ( http://www.patentfizz.com ) based on these principles in an effort to enable community review of issued patents. Anyone can submit a comment on a patent, ranging from “this patent is ridiculous” to a full invalidity analysis. We even accept anonymous comments.

It seems that a similar system could be quite effective for community review of published applications.

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