U.S. patent system taps the Internet to solve problems

WASHINGTON — Some of the biggest players in the technology industry complain that the U.S. patent system is broken — putting too many patents of dubious merit in the hands of people who can use them to drag companies and other inventors to court.

And Blaise Mouttet, a small inventor in Alexandria, Va., thinks he knows why. The problem, he said, is that "there are too many lawyers and not enough inventors involved with the patent system."

So Mouttet is taking part in an experimental program launched in June 2007 with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and backed by the technology industry that is intended to give the public — including inventors — more of a voice in the system.

The concept behind the program, called Peer-to-Patent, is straightforward: Publish patent applications on the Web for all to see and let anyone with relevant expertise — academics, colleagues, even potential rivals — offer ideas to be passed along to the Patent Office.

Wisdom of masses

By using the power of the Internet to tap the wisdom of the masses, Peer-to-Patent aims to dig up hard-to-find "prior art" — evidence that an invention already exists or is obvious and therefore doesn't deserve a patent.

The goal is to locate prior art that Patent Office examiners might not find on their own — and to produce better patents by reducing ones granted on applications that aren't novel. The hope is that this will drive innovation by improving the patent process and reducing the patent-infringement lawsuits clogging the courts.

"The Patent and Trademark Office is the agency of citizen creativity, and it needs more and better information to do its job of awarding patents to those citizens who are truly the most creative," said New York Law School professor Beth Noveck, who came up with the idea for Peer-to-Patent while teaching a patent law class.

"A patent is a pretty significant monopoly, so we want to make sure we are giving it to the right people."

Peer-to-Patent has attracted financial support from a cross-section of the technology sector and foundations and is in its second pilot year.

Initial focus

In the first year, the voluntary program focused on software, computer and information-security patents — drawing applications from industry heavyweights such as IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, General Electric and open-source software pioneer Red Hat, as well as small inventors like Mouttet.

Mouttet, a former Patent Office examiner and now a graduate student in electrical engineering, submitted an application on electronic uses of nanomaterials.

Although the Patent Office has rejected his claim — in part because of prior art unearthed through Peer-to-Patent — he is appealing the decision and optimistic he will eventually get his patent. And he is confident it will be stronger for having gone through the process.

But it is the big technology companies that have the highest hopes for Peer-to-Patent since they are some of the most vocal critics of the existing system.

They warn that the Patent Office has been overwhelmed by a sharp increase in patent applications in recent years, particularly in computing.

The agency has more than 5,800 examiners with specialized expertise in a range of areas, but they are sifting through a mountain of applications: 467,243 were submitted in fiscal 2007, up from 237,045 in fiscal 1997 and 137,173 in fiscal 1987.

As a result, said Dave Kappos, vice president of intellectual-property law for IBM, it is taking big technology companies with huge patent portfolios longer and longer to get applications through the system.

Big backlog

The Patent Office had a backlog of nearly 761,000 applications at the end of fiscal 2007, with applicants waiting an average of two years and eight months for a final decision.

That is tough for an industry built on rapid innovation, short product life cycles and technology that can become quickly outdated, Noveck said.

Indeed, a key benefit of participating in the Peer-to-Patent program is the promise of an expedited review, with a preliminary Patent Office decision in as few as seven months.

Backlog is only part of the problem, however. Poor patent quality is just as big a concern.

There are plenty of examples of controversial patents in different industries, such as the one awarded to Amazon.com for its "1-click" online shopping feature or the one granted to J.M. Smucker for a crustless peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich.

But some of the most contentious patents have come out of the tech sector, since software and other-cutting edge technologies are relatively new to the Patent Office and evolving quickly, explained Mark Webbink, director of New York Law School's Center for Patent Innovations, home to Peer-to-Patent, and former general counsel for Red Hat.

That means that patent examiners don't have long-established databases of existing inventions to consult in reviewing these applications.

"With technology, the prior art often can't be found in existing patents or academic journal articles," Noveck said. "It could exist in a string of computer code posted online somewhere that isn't indexed."

The result of substandard patents, tech companies say, has been a sharp increase in costly infringement lawsuits that eat up valuable resources and threaten to keep innovative products off the market.

According to James Bessen and Michael J. Meurer of Boston University School of Law, 2,830 patent lawsuits were filed in U.S. district courts in 2006, up from 1,840 in 1996 and 1,129 in 1986.

Technology companies are particularly vulnerable to infringement litigation since their products can contain hundreds if not thousands of linked patented components critical to their basic operation.

In one closely watched case, a legal battle nearly forced the shutdown of the popular BlackBerry wireless e-mail service.

The BlackBerry has in fact become a rallying cry for technology lobbyists pressing Congress to overhaul the patent system.

Among other things, the industry wants to streamline the patent-approval process and limit damages and injunctions awarded to patent holders who win infringement cases.

But with those proposals stalled in the Senate, Peer-to-Patent offers another way to improve the system, said Curtis Rose, director of patents for Hewlett-Packard.

Some skepticism

Not everyone is sold on the concept of Peer-to-Patent. Stephen Key, an inventor in California who has patented everything from toys to container labels, worries that the program requires applicants to put their ideas out there on the Web for anyone to see — and potentially steal.

Boston University's Meurer also questions how effective Peer-to-Patent will be since he thinks the real factor driving the increase in patent litigation is not a lack of prior art, but rather the vague, overly broad scope of too many patent claims today.

"Applicants come in and ask for the sun, moon and stars and they say: 'Let the Patent Office tell me what is and isn't patentable,' " said John Doll, U.S. Commissioner for Patents. "It's a burden on the system."

Noveck thinks Peer-to-Patent will help strike that balance. The Patent Office reports that it has issued preliminary decisions on 40 of the 74 applications that have come through the program so far.

Of those, six cited prior art submitted only through Peer-to-Patent, while another eight cited art found by both the examiner and peer reviewers.

The question now is whether the program can be scaled to review hundreds or even thousands of applications that extend far beyond the technology arena.