Unfortunately, U.S. patent law creates disincentives for searching through patents, even though one of the main justifications given for the patent system is that the patent teaches the public how to practice an invention that might otherwise be secret. Willful infringement subjects the infringer to enhanced damages when they are aware of the patent and intend to infringe, and reading patents increases the probability that subsequent infringement will be found to be willful. Moreover, we find that developers often assume that the patents they discover are broader in scope than they actually are, and thus such developers become overly or needlessly worried. If, despite this, you do intend to conduct a patent search, you should seek legal advice first.
That said, I'm happy to live and work in Europe where we don't need to deal with this crap.
Thankfully, Art. 52 of the European Patent Convention is pretty sensible in that it does not regard discoveries, scientific theories and mathematical methods, aesthetic creations, and "schemes, rules and methods for performing mental acts, playing games or doing business, and programs for computers" as patentable subject matter.[1]
[1] http://www.epo.org/law-practice/legal-texts/html/epc/2010/e/...
As for PCT. Patents enter the national or regional phase and get examined against the local patent law. Some countries may be inclined to rubber stamp already granted patents (saving time and money). Certainly USA searches for PCT used to be the only ones that were guaranteed _not_ to be thorough!
Something where someone could submit a piece of prior art and for each of the claims in the patent describe how the prior art invalidates that claim. Plus some sort of discussion forum for people to discuss the prior art.
A few companies did launch in this space about a decade back (offering bounties that would be paid by companies getting sued over the patents), but no-one seems to have really succeeded in gaining traction.
I was hoping to use this program to build support for, and ultimately raise enough money to request, ex parte reexaminations of issued patents.
Would any of you have interest if I kept pushing for that idea?
Commercial example: http://www.articleonepartners.com/ "The World's Largest Patent Research Community"
Though apparently they've filed a patent application for crowdsourced vetting for compensation... http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2008/11/startup-crow...
The Patent Office itself should crowd-source the software community looking for prior art before a patent is issued in the first place.
1. Software for a general-purpose digital computer is equivalent to a mathematical algorithm, and therefore not statutory material for a patent.
2. If the all the novelty and non-obviousness in a claim is contained in software, then that claim is not patentable.
3. Software as an element of an otherwise patentable claim does not make the entire claim unpatentable. This is nothing more than the complement of 2. Don't read it in any way inconsistent with 2.
4. Don't read 3 in a way that's inconsistent with 1 and 2. Pay attention to 1, 2 and 3. They are the policy.
Like my policy? I hope so, but they'll never listen to it. If they don't listen to the Supreme Court, they won't listen to anyone. 1 is Benson, 2 is Flook, 3 is Diehr, and 4 is Bilski.
As far as I can tell, Apple has patented something that has been produced before, and the website is requesting evidence of that to undo the patent?
