I've been following the
"patents are bad" meme on the web/blogosphere and
this "Peer to Patent" is
an interesting idea. Basically, the crux, as I understand it, is
that patents hamper innovation and/or they do a poor of indicating
new innovation and/or they are used in bad ways (ala Eolas suite of
Microsoft and the non user-friendly browser behavior resulting
from it). I'll revisit this idea in the future but Peer reviewed
patents sounds interesting - particularly if it gets some serious
backing (the videos
suggest some serious thinkers in the tech space: Tim O'Reilly; Todd
Dickinson - IP Counsel for GE; and Curt Rose - Assistant General
Counsel for HP) - it could become a defacto standard. Kudos for
working with the USPTO. Link: http://www.peertopatent.org/
Update: I ran across the EFF
explaining why they like Peer to Patent: it stops trivial patents
like this
drag and drop patent from Yahoo
.