USPTO Open Source Community Partnership

Thanks to Peter Zura at the "Two-Seventy-One Patent Blog" for getting the story behind the USPTO's new announcement of an Open Source Community Partnership for improving software patent examination. He links to a story by John Markoff in the January 10, 2006 New York Times:

Two of the initiatives would rely on recently developed Internet technologies. An open patent review program would set up a system on the patent office Web site where visitors could submit search criteria and subscribe to electronic alerts about patent applications in specific areas. The third initiative is focused on the creation of a patent quality index that would serve as a tool for patent applicants to use in writing their applications. It is based on work done by Professor R. Polk Wagner, an intellectual property expert at the University of Pennsylvania.