4 ms·

For those who are claiming prior art, I suggest you open a question up at "Ask Patents" (StackExchange site). "Ask Patents" has been used by the USPTO to overt

For those who are claiming prior art, I suggest you open a question up at "Ask Patents" (StackExchange site). "Ask Patents" has been used by the USPTO to overturn patent requests. http://patents.stackexchange.com/ http://patents.stackexchange.com/

Alupis 12y ago
Source? (Seems unlikely the USPTO would use a end-user forums to make a decision)
- gavinpc 12y ago
  > The America Invents Act changed the law to allow the public to submit examples of prior art while a patent application is being examined. And that’s why the USPTO asked us to set up Ask Patents, a Stack Exchange site where software developers like you can submit examples of prior art to stop crappy software patents even before they’re issued. http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2013/07/22.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2013/07/22.html
  - DannyBee 12y ago
    Yes, they did. They asked a lot of folks to do a lot of things. That does not mean it is actually used. I've talked with the ask patents folks before, and from what i remember, they send email to the examiners. That's it. They try to occasionally look and see if the stuff they cite was cited by the examiners, but then they assume that if that is the case, that they were the reason the examiner found it. While I understand how hard it is to know why examiners did things in general (You can see exactly what they searched for through PAIR data, but not what results it turned up), this is a very very suspect methodology.
  - omglol 12y ago
    People really need to stop always quoting Joel - he is not a definitive go-to software spokesperson, and has some very strong (and often wrong) opinions about things -- shaped by years at Microsoft doing things only the Microsoft way. ~~ He is puffing his product in this blog post -- nothing more.
    - logn 12y ago
      He's stating facts about his startup. It's not like he's giving some opinion on something he's not qualified for. It's like saying we shouldn't ask Woz we he made Apple Basic.
      - Alupis 12y ago
        Well, StackExchange is hardly a "startup" anymore. And, this particular blog post is Joel up-talking the new "ask patents" exchange and describing why he feels it's needed.... so... it is a puff piece.
- michaelhoffman 12y ago
  http://www.uspto.gov/news/pr/2012/12-60.jsp http://www.uspto.gov/news/pr/2012/12-60.jsp http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2013/07/22.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2013/07/22.html
- awestroke 12y ago
  patents.stackexchange is probably not the end source for them to base a decision on, but rather a place to find real sources of prior art for patent applications. So it seems very likely to me.
  - DannyBee 12y ago
    Patent examiners are generally not allowed to search external sources for information about unpublished apps. I've had this discussion numerous times with examiners and PTO officials while working on improving prior art finding on google.com/patents. They have a very fixed number of sources they search, and are generally not allowed to search elsewhere with unpublished app info. So I can pretty much 100% guarantee you they are not searching patents.stackexchange for information. (Plus, patents.stackexchange themselves do not suggest examiners use it that way. They email examiners). For published apps (this was recently published), they are allowed to do more, but they generally don't anyway. They stick to the databases/etc that are available to them internally.
- DannyBee 12y ago
  I don't know why you are being downvoted when you are, sadly, 100% correct.
Thieum22 12y ago
done (not by me) here : https://patents.stackexchange.com/questions/10122/looking-for-prior-art-for-patent-application-us20140196015-declaration-of-lifet https://patents.stackexchange.com/questions/10122/looking-fo... and here : https://patents.stackexchange.com/questions/10128/prior-art-for-us-patent-application-20140196008-immutable-object-types https://patents.stackexchange.com/questions/10128/prior-art-...

Alupis 12y ago

Source? (Seems unlikely the USPTO would use a end-user forums to make a decision)

gavinpc 12y ago
> The America Invents Act changed the law to allow the public to submit examples of prior art while a patent application is being examined. And that’s why the USPTO asked us to set up Ask Patents, a Stack Exchange site where software developers like you can submit examples of prior art to stop crappy software patents even before they’re issued. http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2013/07/22.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2013/07/22.html
- DannyBee 12y ago
  Yes, they did. They asked a lot of folks to do a lot of things. That does not mean it is actually used. I've talked with the ask patents folks before, and from what i remember, they send email to the examiners. That's it. They try to occasionally look and see if the stuff they cite was cited by the examiners, but then they assume that if that is the case, that they were the reason the examiner found it. While I understand how hard it is to know why examiners did things in general (You can see exactly what they searched for through PAIR data, but not what results it turned up), this is a very very suspect methodology.
- omglol 12y ago
  People really need to stop always quoting Joel - he is not a definitive go-to software spokesperson, and has some very strong (and often wrong) opinions about things -- shaped by years at Microsoft doing things only the Microsoft way. ~~ He is puffing his product in this blog post -- nothing more.
  - logn 12y ago
    He's stating facts about his startup. It's not like he's giving some opinion on something he's not qualified for. It's like saying we shouldn't ask Woz we he made Apple Basic.
    - Alupis 12y ago
      Well, StackExchange is hardly a "startup" anymore. And, this particular blog post is Joel up-talking the new "ask patents" exchange and describing why he feels it's needed.... so... it is a puff piece.
michaelhoffman 12y ago
http://www.uspto.gov/news/pr/2012/12-60.jsp http://www.uspto.gov/news/pr/2012/12-60.jsp http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2013/07/22.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2013/07/22.html
awestroke 12y ago
patents.stackexchange is probably not the end source for them to base a decision on, but rather a place to find real sources of prior art for patent applications. So it seems very likely to me.
- DannyBee 12y ago
  Patent examiners are generally not allowed to search external sources for information about unpublished apps. I've had this discussion numerous times with examiners and PTO officials while working on improving prior art finding on google.com/patents. They have a very fixed number of sources they search, and are generally not allowed to search elsewhere with unpublished app info. So I can pretty much 100% guarantee you they are not searching patents.stackexchange for information. (Plus, patents.stackexchange themselves do not suggest examiners use it that way. They email examiners). For published apps (this was recently published), they are allowed to do more, but they generally don't anyway. They stick to the databases/etc that are available to them internally.
DannyBee 12y ago
I don't know why you are being downvoted when you are, sadly, 100% correct.

Thieum22 12y ago

done (not by me) here : https://patents.stackexchange.com/questions/10122/looking-for-prior-art-for-patent-application-us20140196015-declaration-of-lifet https://patents.stackexchange.com/questions/10122/looking-fo... and here : https://patents.stackexchange.com/questions/10128/prior-art-for-us-patent-application-20140196008-immutable-object-types https://patents.stackexchange.com/questions/10128/prior-art-...