Crowdsourcing patent examinations

Yesterday I spent part of the afternoon at a US Patent & Trademark Office roundtable discussion on using crowdsourcing to improve the patent examination process.  Thanks to Chris Wong for looping me in and helping to organize the event.  If you’re interested, you can watch the whole video here. I was there not as an… Continue reading

Hacking Patents

Last week at the Media Lab, we had the pleasure of hosting USPTO Director Dave Kappos and several members of the PTO’s senior staff, to brainstorm ways that we might use technology in creative ways to help the patent office work better, and to help the patent system work better in general.  The meeting was… Continue reading

Netizen Effects

Last week, Twitter did something big: they introduced a new patent assignment agreement that binds them to use their patent arsenal only for defensive purposes.  In an environment where things are getting ugly in software patent land, this is a bold move. The agreement (here on GitHub), which they’ll use for upcoming work and also… Continue reading