

Please critique my idea: Prior Art - tectonic

I'm tired of ridiculous patents.  I propose a site called PriorArt (or something similar) in which visitors are encouraged to submit every idea that they can think of so that those ideas are never patentable.  This could be done as a forum, or a simple database.  I'd love to get the community's thoughts on the effectiveness / legality of this concept, as I'm no patent lawyer.  And, of course, feel free to use my idea. :)
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jerseygirl
One person's opinion is subjective, and the degree of ridiculousness as
measured by one person will not be the de facto verdict of everyone.

Prior art, as defined by the USPTO, is claimed by previously published patent
applications and letters patent, both here and abroad, as well as articles
submitted in scholarly journals. Thus far it has not been established by any
PTO Examiner I've seen that a blog/ social network/ forum/ static site is of
the same measurable quality as a scholarly publication.

In the absence of this, all PriorArt (as you propose) would do is provide a
submitter's unprotected intellectual property on a domain for everyone else to
see and pillage.

It is reasonable to assume that trollers reading the forum/ blog could see a
good idea and (if there is indeed no prior art existing for it after
conducting a search) patent it for themselves... thereby restricting the
orignal inventor from holding license to his/ her own ideas!

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grag
I doubt that making an idea public online will make it unpatentable, but
regardless, an idea sharing and discussion community would be cool.

There is an idea sharing subreddit that's fairly popular:
<http://www.reddit.com/r/idea/>

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echair
_I doubt that making an idea public online will make it unpatentable_

Actually it will. To avoid repetition:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=246005>

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davidw
I think this has been done before. For example:

<http://w2.eff.org/patent/>

... fairly similar.

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laurapie29
Even if it lacks legal strength, the site could provide a strong message
against frivolous technology patents.

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gojomo
That 'strong message' and $4 will buy you a Starbuck's.

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run4yourlives
I'm pretty sure you have to actually build/use the idea in order to claim
prior art.

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echair
An idea has to be novel to be patentable. If someone else has already
published the idea, it's not novel. It doesn't matter whether they built one.

Incidentally, prior art isn't something someone "claims." It's something a
patent has to avoid.

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run4yourlives
What I meant was, if I have my 'widget improving idea' written on the website,
and Joe Smith applies for a patent for his working 'widget improving device',
I'm pretty sure most courts wouldn't listen to my "prior art" claim.

