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it has very few examiners with deep knowledge of tax law, especially of “creative technics” – just like it feels outdated in technology, software issues.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.
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