Patexia Completes Crowdsourced Patent Search

Dec. 3, 2012 - PRLog -- Patexia’s (http://www.patexia.com/) expert community successfully completed its first patent novelty assessment search. The six-week, crowdsourced prior art search (http://www.patexia.com/contests) concluded recently and located multiple sources which demonstrate the invalidity of a highly technical patent currently involved in infringement litigation.

Patexia held an open contest asking users to locate sources that would invalidate the patent. The winner was a graduate student studying electrical engineering at one of the top five programs in the United States. The results of this contest solidify Patexia’s vision of putting expert knowledge back in the patent system.

“This milestone achievement proves our powerful model for patent novelty assessment,” said Patexia Founder and CEO, Pedram Sameni, “a central part of Patexia’s goal of improving the transparency and effectiveness of the intellectual property system.”

The volume and complexity of new patent applications overwhelms the current system. A 2010 Columbia Law School and IBM study assessing patent quality found that more than half the patents involved in infringement litigation were invalid [http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1671784], in large part because the inventions they describe are not novel. The USPTO issued these patents without conducting a proper search for previous disclosures, known as “prior art,” describing the inventions in question.

The result is too many patents with overlapping subject matter, and that excess has become a burden. Between patent trolling and other wasteful litigation, costs to corporations and consumers are getting out of hand. America has a patent problem that is slowing innovation, and the legal system must now sort out which patents are valid and novel, and which are not.

Legal professionals rely on prior art searches to make these determinations. Traditional “keyword” prior art searches can be ineffective. Instead, Patexia crowdsources these searches to subject matter experts already familiar with the ideas of the patent. In the hands of a researcher with the right expertise, the prior art search becomes almost trivial. Corporations and law firms save money on litigation expenses which can instead be used to drive innovation.

Patexia’s next contest (http://www.patexia.com/contests/jetpack) went live November 19th and focuses on water-based jetpacks.