Peer-to-Patent - Operation of The Project - Patent Applicants

Patent Applicants

The USPTO pilot, officially announced in the USPTO’s Official Gazette of 26 June 2007, was initially restricted to patent applications from Technology Center 2100 (Computer Architecture, Software and Information Security) that are voluntarily submitted to the project by the owner/assignee. The extended pilot has expanded to include so-called Business Methods patents (class 705) that fall under Technology Center 3600.

To be eligible for Peer To Patent review, a patent application must be filed during the period covered by the pilot. Furthermore, the USPTO tries to provide a representative sample of current patents by limiting the number of applications from any given applicant.

Incentives for submitting an application to the project include:

• Expedited review. Public review begins one month after publication of the application. Review continues for four months, after which the patent examiner conducts an expedited examination of the patent application.
• Potentially stronger patents. If Peer to Patent review works as expected, patents that survive the process have already undergone considerable scrutiny and will be less at risk of a successful challenge later.
• Public service. Applicants can feel they are contributing to a valuable experiment in new models and technologies for public decision-making.

Applicants follow a procedure described on the project's web site to submit patent applications for review.