The Economist: Patent Apps Should Be Open to Public

According to an opinion piece in The Economist on November 11, 2004, "[T]he patent applications should be made public. In most countries they are, but in America this is the case only under certain circumstances, and after 18 months. More openness would encourage rivals to offer the overworked patent office evidence with which to judge whether an application is truly novel and non-obvious. Patent offices also need to collect and publish data about what happens once patents are granted—the rate at which they are challenged and how many are struck down. This would help to measure the quality of the patent system itself, and offer some way of evaluating whether it is working to promote innovation, or to impede it."