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> 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 U

by 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.

by gavinpc 12y ago

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.