3pointD.com

Is the patent system broken? According to Robert Barr of UC Berkeley, “The system’s not only broken, it’s a disaster.” While the panel that discussed the issue at Supernova today was only tangentially related to the issues that came up recently here on 3pointD, it did contain some interesting bits of news. The main problem under discussion was the great length of time it takes to get a patent examined at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. There are currently up to a million patent applications pending, according to Beth Noveck of the New York Law School (who runs that institution’s Democracy Island project in the virtual world of Second Life). Her solution? Create a peer-review system that leverages the power of the Web. Apparently, IBM and Microsoft have already agreed to have patents reviews through the system, Noveck said, and many other companies are ready to come on board.

There are currently over a million patents pending, with 400,000 new applications filed each year. With such a deluge coming in, patent examiners typically have only 18-20 hours per patent to decide whether to grant them. This has led to a situation in which 90 percent of applications are eventually granted, according to the panelists, who included Wayne Paugh of the Department of Commerce, as well as Noveck and Barr.

Noveck’s Peer-to-Patent project at New York Law School would more or less open-source the patent examination process. The project would let “self-identified experts” submit relevant prior art, which would then be rated and ranked by the community so that the PTO’s patent examiners would more easily be able to find relevant filings and information.

Noveck said the PTO has agreed to move forward on a pilot implementation of the project, which she hopes to launch in January or February of next year. The initiative would begin in the area of software patents, where there’s typically a 4-5 year pendency for applications. The choice of subject areas was made in part because of the active Web-based community, particularly in the area of open-source software. The year-long pilot should look at 4-500 applications, Noveck said.

The irony of open-source advocates becoming part of the patenting process was not lost on Noveck. But, she said, participation of any kind will be helpful, especially from the open-source community, which often knows far more about existing software than patent examiners.

How will this affect virtual worlds? Who knows. Although the news may be of interest once people start filing for patents on software and business processes that have been designed expressly for use in such places. The law has far to go to catch up with what’s going on in the metaverse, but perhaps making the process more open will allow those who do know what’s going on to speed it along.