Comment Re:The prior art is a patent from one year earlier (Score 2) 95
From the article:
For various reasons, many of the patents issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office ("PTO") actually contain no innovation. Such patents effectively allow private actors to recapture ideas that were previously in the public domain. PUBPAT protects the public domain from being recaptured in new patents. PUBPAT's primary tool for protecting the public domain is filing requests for re-examination with the PTO. A reexam request is the formal mechanism for asking the PTO to revoke an issued patent on the grounds that its idea is not new, but is instead nothing more than a reformulation of information that was already public.
For various reasons, many of the patents issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office ("PTO") actually contain no innovation. Such patents effectively allow private actors to recapture ideas that were previously in the public domain. PUBPAT protects the public domain from being recaptured in new patents. PUBPAT's primary tool for protecting the public domain is filing requests for re-examination with the PTO. A reexam request is the formal mechanism for asking the PTO to revoke an issued patent on the grounds that its idea is not new, but is instead nothing more than a reformulation of information that was already public.
