Los Angeles Startup Patexia Presents Crowdsourcing Solutions to help USPTO Improve Patent Quality

SANTA MONICA, Calif. - Dec. 11, 2014 - PRLog -- On December 2, 2014 the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) held a roundtable investigating how crowdsourcing can improve patent examination and quality. Patexia’s Founder and CEO, Pedram Sameni, was invited to share his insights and experiences gained through running Patexia, a successful crowdsourced Intellectual Property (IP) research platform. During his presentation, Sameni emphasized the many benefits of having a crowdsourcing platform provide support and serve as an intermediary between the crowd and the USPTO. Platforms like Patexia are uniquely suited to create questions tailored to the crowd as well as filtering and compiling crowd responses for easy use by the examiner. This extra layer will allow for all of the benefits of diverse crowdsourced research and analysis while maintaining the ex parte nature of patent examination. As a potential approach, Sameni proposed an initial opt-in program for crowdsourced patent review to fine tune the process. At the conclusion of the pilot project the program would transition to a fully scalable opt-out solution.

Following the roundtable, Sameni commented: “Collaborative crowdsourcing efforts like those explored in today’s USPTO roundtable can assist in solving the patent backlog and reducing patent litigation, thus promoting innovation and economic growth.”

Under the current load of new applications, the US patent system is faces ongoing challenges to maintain the efficiency needed to be the driver of innovation the US needs. There is a current backlog of over 600,000 unexamined patent applications despite increased hiring for patent examiners. At the core of the USPTO’s issue is research into prior art, or evidence that an invention is not novel. Earlier this year, USPTO Deputy Director and former Google executive Michelle Lee highlighted the problem: “Innovation moves fast and important advances may be documented only in hard-to-access corporate records or any number of other far-flung repositories. Finding, among a sea of documents... can be difficult.” It is time to take an innovative approach to solving this issue, and crowdsourcing solutions like those already offered by Patexia can make all the difference.

Patexia’s growing community currently includes 10,000 legal and technical subject matter experts from around the world to help address the USPTO’s challenges. Crowdsourcing allows the Patexia community to cover a breadth of sources spanning languages, areas of expertise, and source materials that would be impossible for any individual, no matter how well qualified. By using crowdsourcing to supplement prior art research conducted by patent examiners, the examination process will be streamlined and the quality of granted patents can be improved. A more rapid examination process and stronger patents can reduce wasted time and money put into patent litigation, as well as stimulate further innovation.

About Patexia

Founded in 2010 to bring efficiency and transparency to intellectual property through crowdsourcing, Patexia is an online platform connecting corporations to a community of 10,000 global subject matter experts who help them better assess, manage and monetize their IP portfolios. By offering more reliable and in depth IP research through crowdsourcing, Patexia promotes efficiency and drives innovation.

Learn more about Patexia: https://www.patexia.com

About Pedram Sameni

Pedram Sameni is the CEO and founder of Patexia. Sameni found his inspiration for Patexia during his tenure as manager of the intellectual property and licensing department at International Rectifier. Managing an extensive IP portfolio allowed him to see the shortcomings in conventional methods for assessing patent value and validity. With these insights, Sameni left to found Patexia, using a crowdsourcing model to address the inefficiencies he had observed. Prior to his work at International Rectifier, Sameni received his PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada and worked for several high-tech companies, including PMC-Sierra and Foveon.