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Patent Quality Improvements in the Works at the USPTO

By Seth H. Ostrow and Arianna Frankl
June 29, 2006

In its ongoing efforts to improve the examination of software patents and resolve continued concerns over their quality, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office ('PTO') has partnered with IBM, Open Source Development Labs ('OSDL'), and the open source community to try and achieve this goal. Among the proposals is the idea of establishing a searchable database containing an index of open source computer code. This database should make it easier for software code developers and patent examiners to locate relevant prior art.

Open Source

Generally speaking, open source software includes source code that is made available to the public under a 'public license,' such that the source code can be read, modified, and redistributed by users, subject to certain conditions. The open source approach is the conceptual and practical opposite of the idea of software as a 'closed,' proprietary product, distributed in the form of object code only, with the source code held privately by the owner. Most open source software is developed collaboratively by volunteer groups of programmers and typically is made available for download via the Internet.

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