US patent office seeks aid to spot bogus patent claims

H_TeXMeX_H · 09-24-2012, 09:33 AM

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19672986

Quote:

Members of the public are being asked by the US Patent Office to help weed out bogus patent applications.

It wants the public to contribute to a website that will spot applications for patents on technologies that have already been invented.

People will also be able to flag up applications on the site which they think are bogus.

The site runs Google software to finds examples of older inventions - "prior art" - to filter out fake claims.

That's interesting, maybe it will help the situation a bit ...

sycamorex · 09-24-2012, 10:07 AM

Good. The first step is to admit that there is a problem.

NyteOwl · 09-24-2012, 05:41 PM

Patents applications only? How about problems with already granted patents ... like the absurdity of patenting rectangles with uniformly rounded corners?

H_TeXMeX_H · 09-25-2012, 02:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NyteOwl

Patents applications only? How about problems with already granted patents ... like the absurdity of patenting rectangles with uniformly rounded corners?

Well, I'm not sure. I hope that they will include granted patents as well in the future.