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Defeating Patent Trolls With Crowdsourcing

posted by martyb on Tuesday September 20 2016, @03:21AM   
from the review-this dept.

oaklandwatch writes:

Patent trolls have plagued tech companies for years -- but a new web site proposes a novel solution. "Everyone in the world can back the crowdfunding campaign against the patent," explains their site, which includes a "Featured stupid patents" section. After covering the cost of the fees for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and a lawyer, "The rest is distributed to those who find valid prior art...any evidence that a patent is not novel. We review all the prior art pieces and reward those that may invalidate a claim... Then, we file an ex partes reexamination to the USPTO."

The site's founders include the legal officer at Newegg, who has been fighting patent trolls in the courts for years -- and they came up with a great slogan for the site. "We invalidate patents that shouldn't exist."

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Original Submission

• Great - but first, I'd like to patent two things Great - but first, I'd like to patent two things (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday September 20 2016, @05:49AM

  by FatPhil (863) <reversethis-{if.fdsa} {ta} {tnelyos-cp}> on Tuesday September 20 2016, @05:49AM (#404127) Homepage

  Firstly, I'd like to patent the use of an irrelevant Country Code Top Level Domain because it looks cute, such as ".co".
  
  Secondly, I'd like to patent superficially being a site which serves HTML, but serving HTML that renders nothing of use nor interest until javascript is enabled.
  
  Thirdly, I'd like to see Unpatent address these two stupid patents, and in the process bring great shame upon themselves.

  --
  Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves

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• Re:Great - but first, I'd like to patent two thing (Score: 2) by butthurt on Tuesday September 20 2016, @05:59AM

  by butthurt (6141) on Tuesday September 20 2016, @05:59AM (#404130) Journal

  You don't happen to have a patent on hiding Web sites behind a page that demands "Select all images with grass.", do you?

  Parent