The best way to evaluate a patent application is to look at its claims first. Here's the application in its published form: https://www.google.com/patents/US20

The best way to evaluate a patent application is to look at its claims first. Here's the application in its published form: https://www.google.com/patents/US20130173416 https://www.google.com/patents/US20130173416 The claims are on the right on Google Patents and at the end of the official PDF. Independent claims are the most important; dependent claims are only valid if the claims that they depend upon are also valid. Here, claim 1, which is independent, involves a lot of language having to do with digital goods and inventory. Already that's confusing because digital goods don't tend to have inventory; they're digital. Claim 2, which is dependent upon claim 1, gets into digital currencies. The other focus of the patent application relates to combinations of digital goods. I'd expect the examiner to push back on claim 1 to clarify what they're actually talking about and limit it accordingly. Is there a lot of prior art out there dated before December 29, 2011 (the application's priority date) that could block this applciation from ever going anywhere? Yeah, there is. Will I file some with the USPTO in a few minutes? Yeah, I will. Meanwhile, keep in mind, patents are inherently confusing because by the time one gets granted it has three numbers already, and that's just in the U.S.: there's the application number, which here is 13/340,494, the publication number (before publication, no one can see the application so it can't yet be considered prior art in others), which here is US20130173416 A1, and the grant or issue number, which right now would be somewhere in the 8 million range were it to be granted. A lot of people and institutions mix these numbers up, including even Westlaw, which calls publications "applications". A publication is a snapshot of an application at a particular point in time. Anyway, don't freak out. There's worse [actually granted] patents out there. Also, none of this is legal advice and I'm not a lawyer. Update: I just filed the following potential prior art: 1. http://www.google.com/patents/US20020161692 http://www.google.com/patents/US20020161692 2. http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/14/gumroad-lets-you-sell-anything-you-make/ http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/14/gumroad-lets-you-sell-anyth... 3. http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/11/mf_bitcoin/ http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/11/mf_bitcoin/