Following a year where IBM has
once more produced more patents that any other company, the firm is
to develop software to assess the quality of patents in the USA's
notoriously lax and overloaded system.
It will also continue to allow free access to some of its own
patents to support open-source software.
"IBM's leadership in the strategic use of intellectual property
is based on balancing proprietary and open innovation," said Dr
John Kelly, director of IBM Research. "Our goal is helping
stimulate innovation as public investments in large infrastructure
projects are being planned to boost global economies. We also
anticipate that adding additional transparency to the patent system
will help tackle the continuing patent quality crisis, which is
impeding inventors, entrepreneurs and companies of all sizes."
IBM researchers will join a project aimed at developing a Patent
Quality Index to filter "those low-quality patents with uncertain
scope or dubious claims to technological innovation", said IBM,
"whose number has increased substantially in recent years, together
with historic backlogs, creating uncertainty around intellectual
property rights, and spawning increased speculation and
litigation."
Research will build upon work by Professor Ronald Mann of
Columbia Law School and Professor Toshiya Watanabe of the
University of Tokyo.
It will use statistical and data analysis.
"Improving patent quality must become an essential priority and
we believe the application of data analytics can help create an
empirical measure for what has previously been a subjective
evaluation," IBM manager of Predictive Modelling Dr Rick Lawrence.
"By working with the academic and legal communities on this and
other patent quality initiatives, we can increase the intelligence
of the patent system and encourage the patenting of truly important
innovations."
It is hoped metrics will directly correlated to factors such as
clarity of claims and quality of prior art cited during patent
examination, said IBM. "This will help inventors file better
applications and examiners make better decisions more quickly, so
that patents are more likely valid."
While IBM will seek new patents and protect its established
patents, it also claims that it will increase in publishing
inventions will increase the construction of what it calls smarter
infrastructure
[http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/presskit/26094.wss].
"The evolution of IBM's policy builds on prior efforts to
stimulate innovation by pledging not to assert certain patent
rights in the area of open source software, health care, education,
the environment, and software interoperability, said the firm.
It plans to increase by 50%, to more than 3,000, the number of
technical inventions it publishes annually instead of seeking
patent protection, making these inventions freely available to
others.
In 2008, IBM was granted 4,186 US patents, the 16th consecutive
year it has led the US patent index.
IFI Patent
Intelligence 2008 top ten list is
IBM 4186
Samsung 3515
Canon 2114
Microsoft 2030
Intel 1776
Matsushita* 1745
Toshiba 1609
Fujitsu 1494
Sony 1485
HP 1424
*now Panasonic