Posible Paternt Reform

This is not necessarily new anymore but I wanted to comment on this. It seems that we might finally get that patent reform we were asking for.

An open patent review program would set up a system on the patent office Web site where visitors could submit search criteria and subscribe to electronic alerts about patent applications in specific areas.

The third initiative is focused on the creation of a patent quality index that would serve as a tool for patent applicants to use in writing their applications.

Isn't this exactly what we proposed a long time ago? Give USPTO better search tools to find prior art. Involve skilled professionals in the process of evaluating patents. It is obviously not going to fix the problem, but it may help to cut down on the number of ridiculous patents that surface every month.

If the patent quality index will be free and open to votes from general public guess what is going to happen when next silly patent hits slashdot, dig or boinbong? I would venture a guess that most of the software/business model patents will have their quality score maxed out at the lowest possible value within few hours from posting. I'm not sure if they would want that to happen :P

It's a step forward though. At least they started to acknowledge the problem.

Tags: uspto, patents, patent reform, patent review, software patents