I previously wrote about New York Law School professor Beth Noveck’s experiment to create a Wikipedia-like system that allows outside peer reviewers participate in the patent examination / review process.  

Why?  It’s really simple: the US Patent Office is overwhelmed, it has very few examiners with deep knowledge of tax law, especially of “creative technics” – just like it feels outdated in technology, software issues.  Add to this the explosion in the number of patent applications “leaving examiners only 20 hours on average to comb through a complex application, research past inventions, and decide whether a patent should be granted.”

In an unlikely cooperation of Government, technology giants like IBM & HP and Academia, the  Peer to Patent Project  launched last Friday.   The new system already has a “competitor”, in the form of a private initiative, Wikipatents.com.

It’s great to see wikis put to good use

Details on CNet.