Peer To Patent Partners with IP.com

New York, NY (April 21, 2011)—The Peer To Patent pilot, administered by New York Law School’s Center for Patent Innovations in cooperation with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, has established a partnership with IP.com, a global leader in intellectual property management, to offer IP.com’s subscription-based patent and patent-related databases at no cost to peer reviewers participating in the pilot.

IP.com provides robust Internet services and a wide range of resources and services geared toward interconnecting the worldwide intellectual property community, including a full-text searchable Prior Art Database; international patent databases of China, Japan, and Canada (with the Korean and European Union databases coming soon), which include a superior concept-based matching tool; and technical disclosure bulletins that date back to the 1950s from IBM, Xerox, and 40 other global corporations.

“Having access to IP.com is a huge step forward for our peer reviewers,” said Mark Webbink, Executive Director of the Center for Patent Innovations. “They will now have access to some of the most important technology databases from which to identify relevant prior art. We cannot adequately express our gratitude to IP.com for this major contribution to our work.”

Manny W. Schecter, Chief Patent Counsel at IBM Corporation, said, “The ability of the public to identify prior art relevant to published patent applications is enhanced by free access to potential prior art repositories, such as those provided by IP.com.”

Peer To Patent opens the patent examination process to public participation to accelerate the process and improve the quality of patents. Inventors participating in the pilot agree to have their patent applications reviewed at www.peertopatent.org by volunteer scientific and technical experts. These peer reviewers discuss the applications and submit prior art they think might be relevant to determining if an invention is new and non-obvious, as the law requires. After the review period, the prior art is sent to the USPTO patent examiners for their consideration during examination. The current Peer to Patent pilot began on October 25, 2010 and will run through September 30, 2011.

“We are pleased that we can facilitate patent search and examination, and contribute to Peer To Patent’s critical mission to leverage the world’s talent in order to produce better patents,” said Thomas J. Colson, President and CEO of IP.com.

For more information about Peer To Patent, please visit www.peertopatent.org.

About the Center for Patent Innovations
New York Law School formed the Center for Patent Innovations in June 2008 as a part of the Institute for Information Law & Policy. The Center is focused on bringing real-world technology solutions to improve government operations, particularly in the area of patent law. The Center for Patent Innovations will continue to pursue innovations in patent law and has launched a number of projects related to Peer To Patent, such as Post-Issue Peer To Patent www.post-issue.org, which extends the community-based approach of finding prior art relevant to re-examination of patents that have already been granted.

About New York Law School
Founded in 1891, New York Law School is an independent law school located in lower Manhattan near the city’s centers of law, government, and finance. New York Law School’s renowned faculty of prolific scholars has built the School’s strength in such areas as constitutional law, civil and human rights, labor and employment law, media and information law, urban legal studies, international and comparative law, and a number of interdisciplinary fields. The School is noted for its nine academic centers: Center on Business Law & Policy, Center on Financial Services Law, Center for International Law, Center for New York City Law, Center for Professional Values and Practice, Center for Real Estate Studies, Diane Abbey Law Center for Children and Families, Institute for Information Law & Policy, and Justice Action Center. New York Law School has more than 13,000 graduates and enrolls some 1,500 students in its full- and part-time J.D. program and its four advanced degree programs in financial services law, real estate, tax, and mental disability law studies. www.nyls.edu

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