USPTO's pilot peer to patent project

USPTO Releases Notice Setting Forth Rules for Pilot

Also in NYTimes:

"The patent office is experimenting with the concept of opening the examination process to outsiders, inviting public peer reviews. On June 15, Mr. Dudas said, the patent office will begin a pilot project for open reviews of software patents. The patents in the pilot program will be posted on a Web site, and members of the public with software expertise will be allowed to send the patent office technical references relevant to the patent claims.

But the pilot project applies only to patent applications in the field of information technology, and only with the approval of patent applicants. Legislative changes would be required to have public peer views without an applicant’s approval, and thus to extend the concept to other fields."

起初知道这个项目，是去年5月通过IBM的David J. Kappos在北大所作的一次学术报告。 后来，IBM发布的"Building a New IP Marketplace - A Global Innovation Outlook 2.0 Report"也谈到了这个项目，其中的一组对话很是精彩：

“Community Patent Review is one of the most exciting and revolutionary changes to the patent system in decades. In today’s networked world, the wisdom of a wide array of experts—not just the examiner and the applicant—can be brought to bear in manageable and affordable ways.”
— Beth Noveck, New York Law School

“Community review is a very interesting idea which should be supported.”
— Charles Fish, Time Warner

“At first glance, Community Patent Review seems a good idea. But the experience in China suggests that it may not work well as we expect…The patent office found there were very few meaningful challenges coming from the public. So the 1992 patent law abolished this arrangement. So the problem is: Is there really a community full with technical experts and competent patent agents who are interested in the onerous work of patent review during their part-time?”
— Guobin Cui, Tsinghua University Law School

“The community is keenly interested in ensuring that patents don’t issue improperly in a way that will impinge upon their work. We have seen a lot of support thus far from technical professionals—I don’t think that will be a problem—also some participation is better than none.”
— Marc Ehrlich, IBM

“The intent of community review may be to foster a friendly community of volunteers willing to improve patent quality by pointing out uncited art, but when millions in R&D and patent filing fees are at stake, I believe that an open market economy will create an environment wherein competitive commercial interests will capitalize on the opportunity to invest in reviews for the express purpose of eliminating a competitor’s claims to a market.”
— Andy Gibbs, Patent Café

“The real challenge is the development of secondary institutions and resources that allow the market to self-organize.”
— Kevin Werbach, Wharton School of Business

崔老师的担心不无道理，毕竟中国的很多情况不同于美国。至于这个项目的实际效果如何，还是耐心等待相关的facts and figures吧。