Monday, March 05, 2007 2:35 PM EST
USPTO "crowdsources" patent applications
The United States Patent and Trademark Office will test a project this spring that will post patent applications online, invite comments and rank those comments for serious consideration by the agency's examiners. The Globe and Mail's Matt Ingram says the program is an important first step toward unclogging the patent office pipeline, despite the Web crowd's reputation for being illiterate numbskulls. The very literate crowd at Slashdot, meanwhile, wonders about the dangers of letting corporate users rank their competitors' applications.
