All Questions
170
questions
48
votes
2
answers
15k
views
I want to make a difference - how can I submit prior art to the Patent Office?
I want to stop a patent from being granted in error. I know that finding prior art is just step one. And it's clear that being able to succinctly describe its significance to the claims is step two. ...
- 359
27
votes
3
answers
449
views
Is this site only and specifically for the USA patent system?
In our new site's "About" page we have this:
Ask Patents is a collaboratively edited Q&A site for patent experts and inventors to:
Solicit help finding prior art that might apply to a ...
- 275
24
votes
2
answers
2k
views
How Do I Write a Prior Art Request for a U.S. Patent Application?
It's a bit difficult to capture the essence of what a patent is about in the space of a title. Unfortunately, patent numbers and legal jargon doesn't really tell anyone about the inherent issues ...
- 613
16
votes
3
answers
286
views
Ask Patents needs a cleanup
Ask Patents has attracted a ton of low quality questions. Stuff like https://patents.stackexchange.com/questions/9976/i-am-install-softwayers-games-or-many-think. There's also a good number of ...
- 103
15
votes
1
answer
294
views
How to challenge a patent application
How do I challenge a patent application? In other words, I'm supposed to be able to use this site to challenge the community to find prior art. So, for example, here's a patent application that looks ...
- 1,204
14
votes
3
answers
773
views
Would you be interested in Moderating this site?
Greeting all! It's time to see if we can get some Moderators for this site!
Most Stack Exchange sites (like Ask Patents) are generally self-moderated by the community. The combination of voting, wiki-...
- 613
14
votes
1
answer
204
views
Should we appoint pro-tem moderators?
I'll admit that I'm not an overly frequent user of Ask Patents, but as someone who does pop on from time to time, I see quite a few straight-up bad questions.
As I understand it, AP is currently ...
- 1,139
11
votes
1
answer
279
views
Will obviousness be in play at all?
I understand the primary goal for AskPatents is to crowdsource the discovery of prior art. I think it's brilliant.
However, there will still be a lot of patents that will not be invalidated by ...
- 151
9
votes
2
answers
163
views
Are questions of the form 'Can anyone find prior art for patent X' on topic?
Are questions that attempt to crowd-source the prior art gathering process going to be on topic/allowed?
I'm thinking about questions along the lines of:
I'm being sued by company X regarding ...
- 101
9
votes
2
answers
137
views
Is posting your own original invention on-topic?
There are some recent posts using ask patents as a vehicle to document/"publish" the poster's own inventions that are improvements to cited patent documents and to solicit joint invention via AP. My ...
George WhiteMod
- 28k
9
votes
0
answers
231
views
Don't expire single use patent number tags
Related to Fix Patent Number Tagging system or abandon it, Stack Exchange's taging system automatically kills single use tags after so many months (unless they're added to more than one post). That ...
- 201
9
votes
0
answers
79
views
Syntax for patent number
I propose the introduction of a syntax to indicate a patent number.
For example, a lot of posts start with something like
[Patent Application #20120225162](http://www.google.com/patents/...
- 382
8
votes
3
answers
155
views
Are questions about software licensing on topic?
I'm sure many of you got invited to this private beta because you had previously supported the Software Licensing SE on Area51, so I feel like this will be a useful question.
Software patents and ...
- 226
8
votes
3
answers
424
views
How can I find the best patent applications to challenge (by requesting prior art)?
What is the best way to find/search/browse questionable patent applications so that I can then search for prior art to be submitted to the USPTO.
I'm familiar with Google Patent Search but it's very ...
- 621
8
votes
1
answer
124
views
About page language and wording (omission of moderator?)
On the About page I was checking out the awesome new formatting (very nicely done, including how much of it is straight text)
I'm looking at this cute guy here:
http://sstatic.net/patents/img/about-...
- 103
7
votes
1
answer
165
views
Is there a plan to enable preissuance submissions of prior art directly through this site?
Because preissuance submissions can be submitted for free if it's your first and only submission for a particular application and you're not submitting more than 3 documents, is there any plan to ...
user755
6
votes
1
answer
130
views
Best practices for linking references to patent numbers?
I've noticed that in posts here we're going to very often reference patents by their code / number, whatever you prefer to call it. It seems like a good idea to link these whenever possible to a site ...
- 275
6
votes
2
answers
226
views
What is the rationale for having the patent number as a tag?
This seems to clutter the system, and i didn't see a given rationale in the FAQ.
- 1,001
6
votes
2
answers
134
views
Who are the folks here and how are our answers used?
I have been curious about this - I see a lot of prior art requests that get posted and I/other people have been answering some of them. I think it's great to have visibility on some of the prior art ...
- 460
6
votes
1
answer
136
views
Fix Patent Number Tagging system or abandon it
As per What is the rationale for having the patent number as a tag? and Can patents be searchable by number? questions about specific patents should be tagged with USXXXXXXX
There are at least two ...
- 103
6
votes
1
answer
118
views
Can you question an already issued patent
First off, great and inspiring site!
I've read a lot of topics on submitting prior art for patent applications. Does the same rules apply for already issued patents? I could just save the prior art ...
- 101
6
votes
2
answers
90
views
Patent classification tags and tag wikis
Do tag the question with more general categories that others might subscribe to. For this example, tags like wireless-networks or information-security (the USPTO's classification) might be useful.
...
6
votes
0
answers
90
views
"Ask Question" button seems to confuse some new, Google Patents users
Background
George White pointed out on my related meta post Where is Ask Patents marketed? that Google Patents has a button on every patent page that links to us, and I suspect that this is the cause ...
- 1,139
5
votes
2
answers
68
views
Should we include the prepended year in the [us2012abcdefg] tag structure?
Some tags currently have it, and some do not:
Let's standardize this. Additionally, we should decide whether or not to include the "A1" (which means that this is a patent's first filing) at the end ...
- 264
5
votes
1
answer
197
views
How is this experiment going?
I am new to the site and have spent quite a bit of time reading and trying to learn the ropes and to post helpfully over the last few days. Activity seems very low right now. Maybe the widespread ...
George WhiteMod
- 28k
5
votes
1
answer
122
views
@pops - please learn more about Ask Patents
You recently deleted a post as "only asking about how the patent system works in general". How the US patent system works is exactly one of our two on-topic subjects. You also thought the questioner ...
George WhiteMod
- 28k
5
votes
1
answer
337
views
Break down by claim or patent?
I'm trying to apply Dan Shapiro's How to read a patent in 60 seconds to some Nokia "WebM" patents but it doesn't quite match the normal Q/A format.
I would like to break the patent into individual ...
- 151
5
votes
1
answer
130
views
Can I withdraw an answer when a better one is posted?
I answered a question in the main section by describing some of the considerations in evaluating copyright issues generally. A later answer directly addressed the actual question, rendering my more ...
- 1,728
5
votes
1
answer
93
views
How did this site get out of beta?
Ask patents to me appears, whilst possibly useful, to be significantly less healthy and less active than what Stack Exchange typically expects from a site before graduation. How did Ask Patents get ...
- 163
5
votes
1
answer
154
views
Can we put up a blanket disclaimer of legal advice so that no answer, regardless of its source, can be taken as legal advice?
I have noticed a couple of bios with disclaimers to the effect that "no answer offered on this site is legal advice - consult an attorney - etc."
I am in the same or similar circumstance as some ...
- 1,728
5
votes
1
answer
68
views
api.patents.stackexchange.com returns a frankensite
In trying to diagnose a userscript bug, I realised that some code was using the old, domain-based API 1.1. Figuring that Patents rightfully had no reason to support the deprecated API, I typed in the ...
- 101
5
votes
2
answers
181
views
Are patent examiners and other industry officials visually distingushable from "normal" users?
This site is unusual in the sense that a small subset of people (i.e. the patent examiners and similar industry officials) will be playing a very distinct role on this site, different from the average ...
- 101
4
votes
1
answer
65
views
Did the rep level for edit and close-votes just get changed?
Did the rep level for edit and close-votes just get changed? Last month I was able to participate in close-voting and edits, but not I have lost those privileges.
I don't see any meta question ...
- 688
4
votes
1
answer
98
views
Why do we have so many posts that do not mention the patent number in question? And why so many are off-topic?
Why are there so many posts that do not mention the number but seem to think we know what they are referring to ? Also why do we get so many strangely off-topic questions and can that be mitigated?
George WhiteMod
- 28k
4
votes
1
answer
57
views
Frequent Down Voting
It seems the recently there has been an increase in down voting on answers. While I'm fine with criticism, I think just down voting without providing a comment on the reasoning is unhelpful. How does ...
Eric SMod
- 10.2k
4
votes
1
answer
130
views
What is the purpose of interpreting claim language into plain English?
This practice seems like it is ripe for misinterpretation of the claim language itself. How do we make sure that we aren't losing necessary meaning when doing this?
- 1,001
4
votes
2
answers
110
views
What to do to get this site more attention?
There are 12 users that have received more than 10 reputation in the last month and 22 with more than 100 in the last year, number one beeing somebody who hasn't been here in that year. I don't think ...
user18033
4
votes
2
answers
75
views
Has Ask Patents impacted frivolous patent claims?
I just read about the site's mission against frivolous software patent claims. I'm really intrigued by the idea and I wanted to know how much of an impact it has had since its inception. I wasn't able ...
- 101
4
votes
1
answer
201
views
What Counts as "Prior Art" for a U.S. Patent Application?
When I looked at Online Shopping - Social Feedback on Clothing - Patent Application - PRIOR ART REQUEST, the first thing I thought of was people on Facebook linking to Amazon or other store pages so ...
- 101
4
votes
1
answer
87
views
How do we feel about client solicitations as answers?
I'm referring specifically to this answer here. Is this allowed, and should it be?
- 509
4
votes
1
answer
119
views
"Araqde" at bottom of main About page
I can't believe I just created an account solely to report this, but hey...
- 101
4
votes
1
answer
83
views
Autotagging with patent number
When the question contains a link, such as
[Patent Application #20120225162](http://www.google.com/patents/us20120225162)
the system should tag it with us20120225162. This tag should be special, ...
- 382
4
votes
2
answers
254
views
Why would I submit prior art here for patent 5,491,834 when Article One Partners will pay me?
I see Article One Partners has a research study for US5491834. Why would anyone post prior art at Ask Patents for granted patents?
user1342
4
votes
2
answers
115
views
Rename the overused/misused [patentability] tag
The [patentability] tag is supposed to be for questions about patentability law — i.e. Questions about what conditions must be met for a patent to be held valid. But the [patentability] tags is ...
- 613
4
votes
1
answer
58
views
Automatic tag wikis for individual patents
Also, tag the question with the patent number, like: us20090293106. The software will use this to automatically include a link in the sidebar to the patent.
It would be nice if creating such tags ...
3
votes
1
answer
103
views
Error found in question view calculation
I think the total number of views to question is being calculated wrong...
this question for example
Here no of views is still 1, but it already have more than 8 up votes.
That means there is error in ...
3
votes
1
answer
119
views
Answers - What should an ideal prior art response look like?
What should a prior-art defense look like? Is it sufficient to cite something similar to the invention in question? Or does there need to be clear evidence of substantially similar implementations?
...
- 111
3
votes
1
answer
84
views
Should the design of this site incorporate some ideas from skeptics.stackexchange.com?
Please have a look at Stack Exchange's site for skeptics , which is:
A site for challenging unreferenced notable claims, pseudoscience and biased results
Patents SE (our site) serves a similar ...
- 702
3
votes
2
answers
180
views
Why can't I see Patents SE in the Stack Exchange homepage?
Why is Ask Patents not present in the above grid?
- 101
3
votes
2
answers
56
views
Would Ask Patents consider merging with a more general "IP Law" Q&A site?
I do realize this is a nice little treasure-trove of patent Q&As, but so far it's the only IP-related Q&A site on SE. I see there are proposals in Area 51 for a Copyrights Q&A site and an ...
- 175