The USPTO does not and will not look at nor use an end-user forums like "Ask Patents" for the basis of any decision.
http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2012/09/askpatents-com-a-stack...
The blog post is a puff piece for a new (at the time) StackExchange product and basically just talks about how they felt there was a need for something like this and how they felt the timing was good.
From the Stack Exchange blog post, "[USPTO director Kappos] came–twice!–to the Stack Exchange office in New York City to encourage us to open a Stack Exchange site that would generate heaps of prior art to help the patent examiners do their jobs."
Last year, then-acting USPTO director Rea said in a speech, "We consulted on a private-sector initiative called Ask Patents." http://www.uspto.gov/news/speeches/2013/rea_Managing_Ip.jsp Elsewhere they refer to a "partnership" with Ask Patents.
No, this doesn't mean that prior art submitted to Ask Patents is automatically read by the USPTO. But USPTO promotes it as a way to gather information which can then be submitted through their new public comment process.
Firstly, from the help page:
"Ask Patents blocks dangerous applications by alerting the US Patent Examiner of record when good Prior Art is found for an application that he or she is examining."
Secondly, the site contains examples of patents that were rejected with the site's help. You can search for questions with the [rejected] tag:
"The rejected tag is used on patent applications and patents which have been successfully narrowed or rejected by the USPTO after having been the subject of a prior-art-request on Ask Patents."
When we search for questions with this tag, we see text like "This Patent Application received a Final Rejection by the US Patent Office! The rejection was based in part on prior art found by Ask Patents community below!"
The USPTO has their own internal databases they look to for research information.
