Beth Noveck, author of the must-read A Democracy of Groups, has launched the Peer to Patent Project Blog:

The patent system needs our help. The United States Patent Office is actively seeking ways to bring greater expertise to bear on the review of patent applications and ensure that only worthwhile inventions receive the patent monopoly. Currently, underpaid and overwhelmed examiners struggle under the backlog of applications. Under pressure to expedite review, patents for unmerited inventions are approved.

Sponsored by IBM, the Community Patent Project seeks to create a peer review system for patents that exploits network technology to enable innovation experts to inform the patent examination procedure. In every field of scientific endeavor, peer review is a critical quality control mechanism to improve innovation. Throughout the public sector both peer review and citizen consultation are either legally mandated or practiced as a way to inform policymaking.

The Community Patent Project aims to design and pilot an online system for peer review of patents. The Community Patent system will support a network of experts to advise the Patent Office on prior art as well as to assist with patentability determinations. By using social software, such as social reputation, collaborative filtering and information visualization tools, we can apply the ‘wisdom of the crowd’ - or, more accurately the wisdom of the experts - to complex social and scientific problems. This could make it easier to protect the inventor’s investment while safeguarding the marketplace of ideas.

For more information, please read the background paper: ‘Peer to Patent: Building a Community Patent Review Process’ (Beth Noveck, 2005) available on this website. The Peer to Patent article offers a draft proposal for design of the software and the system. The paper will serve as input to the Community Patent Workshops where the proposal will be refined into a specification and prototype.