Can Machine Learning Fix a Broken Patent System?

An insightful discussion of the patent system and new technologies associated with evaluation and policy.  Here's the first part of this article (click on the link below for the full text).

"Seth Fletcher | December 18, 2013 -- Last month molecular geneticist and crusader for intellectual property reform Richard Jefferson wrote a Forum column for Scientific American in which he explained the concept of “innovation cartography”—the idea that mapping the vast and inscrutable world of patents will enable more players to create more innovations, some of which might end up doing a lot of good. Since then, Jefferson and his colleagues have launched a new version of The Lens, an open resource for searching and analyzing patents issued worldwide; published a paper in Nature Biotechnology on using The Lens to explore global gene patents; and announced a new round of funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. I suspected Jefferson had more to say than he could fit into that Forum piece, so I gave him a call. Among other things, I learned that patents run in the family: Richard Jefferson is a descendant of Thomas Jefferson (Scientific American is part of Nature Publishing Group)    [An edited transcript of the interview follows.]

What’s wrong with the patent system in the U.S.?

When my great uncle Thomas started the U.S. patent system, he was obsessed with this bargain issue: You wouldn’t get a sanction until you disclosed your invention. But today the idea of patents as teachings has become risible. Companies have become incredibly skilled in hiding the ball. So we’ve repurposed patents. People have come up with ex post facto justifications about securing investment, and so on.

The patent system is in dire straits. The game is set where opacity and mendacity are celebrated. Some people say only solution is to get rid of patent system. There is some validity to that. But the purpose of The Lens is to render so much clarity that we have the tools for looking at policy and figuring out how to change it.

You’ve said that today’s IP system creates huge inefficiencies and ultimately benefits the biggest players. How so?

Let’s say your business is polymer fibers. A polymer company will spend a phenomenal amount of money mapping the world they need to navigate—hundreds of millions of dollars spent mapping the world of fiber chemistry, polymer chemistry, regulations, market research, and so on. But every polymer company does the same thing, and most of them will admit under duress, or the influence of single malt, that 90 percent of what they spend is precompetitive—it’s just knowing the lay of the land. Every one of these companies spends the same kind of money to get the same knowledge. And the expense comes from the opacity of the intellectual property system."

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2013/12/18/can-machine-learning-fix-a-broken-patent-system/