Peer-to-Patent Calls for Independent Inventor Participation

Peer to Patent Press Release:

FACT:  [You’ll wait]an average of 44 months before you … receive a First Office Action on the Merits of your patent application in Technology Center 2100 (Computer Architecture, Software, and Information Security).

FACT: If you participate in Peer-To-Patent you could have a First Office Action on the Merits for that same application in only 23 months, and as little as 7 months if you opt for early publication. … at no additional cost…

This pilot program runs only through June 2008 and is limited to 250 applications with special priority being given to inventors with fewer than 25 patents.

Join already-participating companies such as GE, HP, IBM, Microsoft and other small inventors in this historic initiative to open up the patent examination process for public submission of prior art and commentary.

Applicants interested in participating in the Peer-to-Patent pilot must first file a patent application with the USPTO.  The patent application must be within Technology Center 2100 subject matter (covering computer architecture, software, and information security) in order to be eligible for the Peer-to-Patent pilot.  Applicants must then submit a signed "Applicant's Consent to Third-Party Comments in Published Applications and Consent to Pilot Participation" form available on the USPTO website at: http://www.uspto.gov/web/patents/peerpriorartpilot/consent.pdf.  And email a scanned and signed copy of the completed consent form to: PeerReviewPilot2007@USPTO.GOV .

Comments

[SF]

FACT: Those third-party comments (now part of the prosecution history record) will screw with claim construction during litigation!!!

[GGF]

"This pilot program runs only through June 2008 and is limited to 250 applications with special priority being given to inventors with fewer than 25 patents."

Because everyone knows GE, HP, IBM, and Microsoft have fewer than 25 patents!

[small inventor]

He-He-He....

Why would any small non-manufactoring inventor without any investors already lined up want to accelerate patent grant ?

44 months before First Office Action ? Yeah, right, in my case it was 47 months...

Then the patent issued with all of the claims intact within 5 months

But the invention was published in the proceedings of a major international conference just one week after patent filing date
It was also published on my website and widely curculated and discussed on the internet
The thing is, if you think your invention will be stolen by all large mutinationals no matter what then it is in your best (long-term) interest to facilitate this process of stealing...
And of course, the license was offered to all of the major industry players, as a matter of good policy, but with the usual response from them: none

Now, because of 47 months delay the term of the patent is extended by 9 hundred something days (!!!)

[MaxDrei]

Looking in from Europe, where we have had Peer to Patent since 1978 (Article 115 of the EPC makes it cheap and simple to file observations against ANY pending EPO app, attributed or anonymous) and where we have a tradition that industry monitors the A publications of its competitors coming out of the EPO, there is nevertheless virtually no use at all of the provisions of Art 115. For good reason: Applicants would rather know before issue rather than after, what the art is out there. So, this new initiative to get Peer to Patent up and running is interesting.

[iwasthere]

@small inventor - you mean after a 47 month delay the industry had already adopted the technology and it looks like sour grapes now that you have the patent? Giving fodder to the patent troll/serial infringer dichotomy? USPTO creating yet again its own irrelevance caused by its own internal mismanagement of resources? The pto is so pathetic now - the only reasonable conconlusion is that it is being deliberatly mismanaged. That would be true of course a many of the agencies in this town right now.