Is patent peer review coming?
The USPTO website has the following:
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) will hold a briefing on May 12, 2006, from 9:00 a.m. to noon in the agency’s Madison building, 600 Dulany Street, Alexandria, VA. The USPTO has created a partnership with academia and the private sector to launch an online, peer review pilot project that seeks to ensure that patent examiners will have improved access to all available prior art during the patent examination process.
As a follow-up to the February 16th meeting, this briefing will focus on further developing previously discussed initiatives as well as answering the question of what constitutes valid prior art and a greater in-depth analysis of the peer review pilot project that is under consideration.
The meeting is open to the public. However, space is limited so please register early. Only the first 220 registrations can be accepted.
Although the Patently-O blog announces Patent peer review is coming!, this is not "peer review" as would be understood by referees of scientific journals such as Science, Nature, Physical Review Letters, or the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
Patently-O continues:
The peer-review system is not intended to replace patent examiners — what the system will do is allow the public to review pending patent applications and provide relevant prior art. Using a ranking system (like slashdot), the public will essentially vote to determine which prior art references are the most relevant. The general idea is to help make sure that the best prior art is seen by the patent examiner.
The project is the brain-child of Professor Noveck at NYLS, but IBM and other tech companies have signed-on with their support. The pilot will primarily focus on “technology” patents rather than pharmaceuticals, and will only review applications after receiving inventor permission.
The pilot will not require a rule change because the references will be sent to the examiner without comment — although the examiner could potentially read the comments on the peer review website.
This concept of "peer review"
--> does not involve "review" of the the invention in the application and analysis of the question "given what the applicant says, does this work?" No "peer" is "reviewing" the contents of the patent application for enablement or written description.
--> does involve a vote on what the most relevant prior art is
--> is not limited to "peers" as the public will essentially vote to determine which prior art references are the most relevant
--> in this pilot stage, requires permission of the patent applicant
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) will hold a briefing on May 12, 2006, from 9:00 a.m. to noon in the agency’s Madison building, 600 Dulany Street, Alexandria, VA. The USPTO has created a partnership with academia and the private sector to launch an online, peer review pilot project that seeks to ensure that patent examiners will have improved access to all available prior art during the patent examination process.
As a follow-up to the February 16th meeting, this briefing will focus on further developing previously discussed initiatives as well as answering the question of what constitutes valid prior art and a greater in-depth analysis of the peer review pilot project that is under consideration.
The meeting is open to the public. However, space is limited so please register early. Only the first 220 registrations can be accepted.
Although the Patently-O blog announces Patent peer review is coming!, this is not "peer review" as would be understood by referees of scientific journals such as Science, Nature, Physical Review Letters, or the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
Patently-O continues:
The peer-review system is not intended to replace patent examiners — what the system will do is allow the public to review pending patent applications and provide relevant prior art. Using a ranking system (like slashdot), the public will essentially vote to determine which prior art references are the most relevant. The general idea is to help make sure that the best prior art is seen by the patent examiner.
The project is the brain-child of Professor Noveck at NYLS, but IBM and other tech companies have signed-on with their support. The pilot will primarily focus on “technology” patents rather than pharmaceuticals, and will only review applications after receiving inventor permission.
The pilot will not require a rule change because the references will be sent to the examiner without comment — although the examiner could potentially read the comments on the peer review website.
This concept of "peer review"
--> does not involve "review" of the the invention in the application and analysis of the question "given what the applicant says, does this work?" No "peer" is "reviewing" the contents of the patent application for enablement or written description.
--> does involve a vote on what the most relevant prior art is
--> is not limited to "peers" as the public will essentially vote to determine which prior art references are the most relevant
--> in this pilot stage, requires permission of the patent applicant
posted by Lawrence B. Ebert at 2:25 PM
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